US needs to build education 'alternatives, solutions': Charlie Kirk
Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk discusses a newly funded academy in Phoenix as "the natural next step" for the education organization.
EXCLUSIVE: Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk says higher education has "become a scam," and is using his new book to encourage young Americans to "absolutely" skip attending a four-year college or university.
Kirk, in his new book "The College Scam," says colleges and universities are filled with "far-left professors" who use their classrooms to "force anti-American and progressive ideologies onto students."
"The premise of the book is that, you know, regardless of your walk of life, if you are a parent or a grandparent or a student, there must be an agreed upon consensus that higher education has become a scam," Kirk told Fox News on Monday.
When asked of Kirk is telling young Americans not to pursue a college degree, he said, "Yes, absolutely."
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"Anything but college," Kirk told Fox News, encouraging young Americans to instead become entrepreneurs and "start a business."
Winning Team Publishing is publishing Charlie Kirk's new book, "College Scam," which is available starting July 26. (Winning Team Publishing)
"Maybe go to a community college or a tech school, take a gap year, go find a business owner that is in the profession that you might have an interest in and ask for a job, go ask for an unpaid internship," Kirk said.
"You know, something that is so lacking when I talk to employers is hunger and desire," Kirk said. "What is that piece of paper really going to do for you?
"I would say, very bluntly, that maybe if you want to become a doctor or a lawyer or an accountant or an engineer — which, by the way, is a huge minority of people that go to colleges — maybe you should go to college but pick the right one," Kirk continued. "But the vast majority of kids, the vast majority kids that go to college, shouldn't be there at all."
When asked how those young people would be able to secure jobs without a college degree, Kirk said that is an "antiquated resume reviewing process."
"The worst thing you can do is go borrow money ahead of time when you’re not really sure what sort of skill you want to have," Kirk said. "And the other thing is that a vast majority of Fortune 11 companies have said that the kids that are coming out of college, their vocabulary skills, their writing, their work ethic is so bad that the college degree means almost next to nothing.
Charlie Kirk speaks onstage at Politicon at the Los Angeles Convention Center, Oct. 20, 2018. (Michael S. Schwartz/Getty Images)
"And so I say to kids that, look, if you think you need the piece of paper and all the debt alongside of it to get the job, so be it," Kirk continued. "But I believe that there is a massive sea change, and that's part of what this book is trying to accomplish."
Kirk acknowledged that there is a "gatekeeping process of people that you do need the piece of paper to get through the door."
"I am trying to change that and have people reconsider it, and studies are also showing that the degree people obtained doesn’t even match the job they eventually hold," Kirk said.
Kirk said he wrote his book in a "rather unique" way to "lay out the facts as a 10-count indictment, as if I was a prosecutor trying to indict colleges in front of you — the jury."
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"I leave it up to the reader at the very end of it," Kirk said. "I say, give me an opportunity as the prosecutor, men and women of the jury, to lay the case out, and I think we have a rather compelling way of doing that."
In the book, Kirk indicts the college industry for "fraud," saying "colleges do not educate anymore."
Kirk is the founder and president of Turning Point USA, a national student movement dedicated to identifying, organizing and empowering young people to promote the principles of free markets and limited government.
Kirk has used TPUSA to try to reform college campuses across the nation.
He says his new book, though, is a "mixture of both" reform and an effort to change the way young people think about their career after high school.
"I’m not going to stop the fight of trying to reform these campuses. I know that a massive closure of college campuses is not going to happen any time soon, as desperately as it is needed," Kirk said. "But the best way to change something is to get the consumer to start challenging it — to say, ‘I don’t need this. This is not what’s necessary.’"
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He added: "And that is something I hope the book ends up accomplishing."
"College Scam" is Winning Team Publishing’s second book since launching last year — the first was former President Trump’s coffee table book, "Our Journey Together."
"College Scam" comes out July 26 and is available at www.collegescam.com.
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