The Orange Tree · Lilythrewthatorange

3 Main Reasons Why You Should Go to College Ep. 5

April 4, 2023·32 min·2 clips

A professor told Lily she would fail and to stop coming to office hours, but she passed the final with a 98.

Lily is not anti-college. She is separating college as a tool from college as the default script people follow because adults, parents, and the world keep pointing them there. She opens with her own path: entering the University of Wyoming at seventeen for farm and ranch management, then changing direction after a frustrating ranch economics class. That makes the advice personal, not abstract. She remembers how surprising that choice sounded to people who knew or followed her, and she uses that reaction to push back on the idea that there is a certain college type. Her real issue is autopilot. Lily keeps coming back to cost because four years of wandering can become a serious amount of student-loan debt. She names it plainly. Her own debt was about $15,000, then she compares that with people carrying much larger loans for degrees they do not use or even care about. That is the part she wants listeners to feel. College should not be an expensive personality quiz when travel and life experience might help someone figure things out without taking on college debt. Eighteen feels too young to lock in a permanent path before you know yourself, and Lily argues that treating that choice as normal can be financially reckless. She still leaves room for people with drive. If someone has a clear fire and a real reason to pursue a degree, college can help them get more out of life instead of drifting. The tone is personal and pushy in a useful way. She is talking to listeners who want more, feel pressure from parents or the world, and need permission to ask whether college serves their goals. No glossy inspiration. Know why you are going, know what it costs, and stop pretending debt disappears because everyone calls it normal.

As heard by us

A blunt warning against treating college as the default way to figure out your life.

She treats college as a costly decision, not a default milestone. After starting at 17 in farm and ranch management at the University of Wyoming, she changes majors when a ranch economics and accounting class turns into a mess that even the TAs cannot really explain.

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Why you'd press play

You want the real cost of college, not the brochure version.

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