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Danny Iny (Twitter: @DannyIny) is the founder and CEO of Mirasee and a best-selling author of nine books, including his most recent work, Leveraged Learning.

In this episode, Mission Daily Producer Hilary Giorgi (Twitter: @htag24) sits down with Danny to discuss why a traditional college education may not be worth as much as we’ve all been taught.

[2:00] Danny’s Love/Hate Relationship With Education

• His experiences have cumulated into Leveraged Learning.
• Danny’s Background:
  • Danny was a perfect student until the 8th grade. But when he went into high school, he realized how bored he was. He started cutting classes, and when he was 15, he realized that high school was a waste of time. He could spend the next 3 years cutting class or build something. He officially quit school and started his own business.
  • He didn’t have any business or tech skills, so he had to learn how to develop them on the fly.
  • Eventually started his first company – a software education company. It failed and Danny hit a low point in life. He decided to go back to school for an MBA.
  • He was disappointed with his school experience again and began questioning: “Why is the public perception of how education works so different from the reality?” This led to research for his latest book.

[9:45] Leveraged Learning

• The thesis of the book is that the education system isn’t working like it used to.
• The idea that college is the path to success is core to the way that we’ve organized our system.
  • “We spend 18 years trying to get into college and at least 18 years paying it off.”
    
• “When value is going down and cost is going up, that’s a bubble. And bubbles always pop.” Click to Tweet
  
• College enrollment is declining.

[15:00] The Smarter Way To Go About Getting An Education

• [15:24] From an individual perspective:
  • There is no mainstream alternative, so people have to get creative.
  • “The biggest mistake people make isn’t going to college. It’s committing to any path before they know where they want that path to lead.” Click to Tweet
  • “College is a terrible way of finding out what you like. The options on the menu are pretty limited, but also you’re spending a ton of time and money for that clarity.” Click to Tweet
• [17:42] From a system perspective
  • “Everything you learn will be obsolete in 5 years.”
  • We need to design a system that educates people in the things that they actually need to know.

[20:00] How Online Education Is Changing The Game

• Online courses aren’t good signals yet. They won’t become good signals until other people start recognizing the ‘good’ online courses from the ‘bad’ online courses.
• It’s early days for the industry and the opportunities are growing.  Danny plans to be at the forefront of that revolution.

Learn more about Danny (Twitter | LinkedIn) and what he does at Mirasee (Website | Twitter | LinkedIn).