Stop Worrying about Your Kid Getting Into Yale
The Jesse Mecham Show
YNAB
4.7 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 25 September 2025
⏱️ 8 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It's no secret, college is expensive. But if you haven't looked in a few years, college has gotten really expensive, especially certain schools with a lot of name recognition and clout. Jesse has a senior in high school, so as he's been helping with the college application process, he's been pondering: is college worth it? And more importantly, is every college worth it?
As Jesse balks at the eye watering price of Yale (over $100k a year now), he urges listeners to really check in with their "why" for college, get clear about their priorities, and not get caught up in the hype of prestige.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, my name is Jesse Meekam with another episode of the Jesse Meekam show, and I'm here each week to obsess out loud this time. |
| 0:19.4 | Well, it's always about money, money but it's it's about these seniors |
| 0:23.0 | in high school and if they're choosing to go and get a higher education i don't even like that |
| 0:29.7 | adjective before the word education but if they're going to pursue a higher education the question is |
| 0:35.5 | well how you're going to pay for it? Before I get into this, |
| 0:40.5 | read Ron Lieber's book. I believe it's called The Price We Pay for College, or something along |
| 0:44.7 | those lines. It's by Ron Lieber, L-I-E-B-E-R. I had him on the podcast years ago, and he blew my mind |
| 0:51.1 | as it relates to how flexible universities are when it comes to their pricing. |
| 0:58.0 | So we can know that going in, but I have a senior in high school. |
| 1:03.7 | And so applications have begun and things like that. |
| 1:07.7 | And it can be an exciting time. |
| 1:13.9 | Yeah, it can be really exciting. You know, things are changing. But two things. How do you get into a really good school? And then if they do, |
| 1:20.8 | how do you afford that stupidly expensive school? I shouldn't say stupidly. I meant outrageously |
| 1:27.0 | obnoxious. No, the price is obscene. There. Is that the word we're going to use? It's out there. Here in my neck of the woods, University of Utah is a state school, not my alma mater. So I don't want to promote them. No, I'm just kidding. I love the you. |
| 1:46.8 | Maybe I love it because it's 10 grand a year. |
| 1:54.0 | If my senior were to get into a very prestigious Ivy League school like Yale, I think it's something like I have my notes here, around 94 grand, a year. |
| 1:59.2 | All right. |
| 2:06.0 | I can't even take the rest of this little recording seriously because of my sticker shock that I already knew, but I am shocked again. Having re-read it, |
| 2:11.6 | it shocked me anew. $94,000 a year. I'm setting aside financial aid that you might get from both. |
| 2:19.3 | One would be like, here's a couple grand, and one would be like a couple grand is how much you pay for breakfast per semester. |
| 2:27.2 | $94,000 a year for four years. |
| 2:30.1 | We're looking at $360,000. |
... |
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