1245: The Truth About College and Teaching Teens Success Skills With Hannah Maruyama

“Success is your child getting what they want out of life, including who they want to be and how they want to be.”

College is rarely the right next step for our kids, yet parents are so bought into this outdated view of education and success. In this episode, Heather sits down with Degree Free founder, Hannah Maruyama, to unpack the best ways to support our teens in building skills that help them uncover their passion at the right time, rather than shoving them back onto the “education” conveyor belt that saddles them with freedom-stealing debt. This isn’t about being anti-education; it’s about being pro-reality, and Hannah brings the data, the strategy, and the cultural nuance to help parents support their kids with clarity, not fear.

What to listen for:

✨ Stepping into a leadership role as a parent, rather than controlling
✨ Understanding that college isn’t actually the “traditional” path we think it is
✨ The moment Hannah realized that college wasn’t teaching her anything

“Being strategic about what I needed from work, finding what I needed to learn, and then learning it in the most effective way possible for me at the time, within the budget that I had, I was able to get to my goal very quickly.”

✨ How COVID opened parents’ eyes to where the education system fails kids
✨ Why academic book smarts aren’t always relevant in the real, working world
✨ Navigating the “failure to launch” and why pushing them into college isn’t the fix

“That space in between high school and college, where we feel like we have to funnel kids into something right then, is imaginary. It doesn't exist. The reason kids stall out at that time is that we’ve told them that the cutoff is coming so soon when it's not.”

✨ The fallacy of pushing kids into choosing their future profession at 18
✨ If GPA doesn’t matter after high school, why are we killing our kids over it?
✨ Questions you need to ask as a parent to help guide your child’s future

“You have these kids that are handcuffed, and they're 22 years old. They have no freedom. Their whole life trajectory has been laid out because they made this crucial, incorrect decision at 17 or 18 years old, all because no one asked them, ‘What do you want your life to look like?’”

✨ Navigating your child’s future while questioning your own in midlife
✨ Two questions you should never ask your kids if you want to support them
✨ The mindset shift that will help your kids stack skills and find their passion

About Hannah Maruyama:

Hannah Maruyama is the founder of Degree Free, which helps parents and their young adults create custom career roadmaps so they can launch their lives.

From tech to trades, any job under the sun.

With her husband Ryan, she runs @degreefree on TikTok, which has over 500,000 followers and 150,000,000+ views, and the Degree Free Podcast (a top US Careers Podcast).

She also co-wrote The Degree Free Way: How to Help Your 16-20 Year Old Build the Life They Want, which has sold more than 16,000 copies nationwide.

Connect with Hannah:

Website: https://degreefree.com/
The Degree Free: https://degreefree.com/book
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DegreeFree
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@degreefree
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/degreefree/

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