Good morning John! I asked on Twitter just now what people want me to chat about today on Vlogbrothers and a bunch of people asked me questions about college? And so then I was like "hey, you got college questions?" And oh my gosh they did! Lots of 'em! 

So let's see if I have any useful wisdom to impart, despite the fact that I haven't been inside of a classroom in a decade and a half.

Kate asks, "how much plasma would I have to sell to pay for an engineering degree?" Kate, first of all, if you're gonna get an engineering degree, you should probably be able to do this calculation yourself. Second, a lot. Like, way more than you have. You're gonna have to harvest it from other people, which I... do not condone, but you're here to solve problems, girl.

"Do I go to a college 1500 miles away that I love or one nearer home and help my parents with my million tiny siblings?" So I hope you understand that we're all assuming you are a roach person now. But dear roach person, it is commendable that you're so committed to your family.

Though I would say a thing here, one of the great benefits of college, and this isn't something everybody wants and not something everybody gets, is being able to break up little bit from the whole life that has been constructed around you, and then seeing what life is like when you build some structures for yourself, to kinda see who you are when you are on your own a little bit. But also family is important, and I'm totally useless. So... euhhhh

"Should I major in something that I'm passionate about or something that's more financially secure?" Ooooh... crepeygirl, I tell you what. Aaaaahhhhhh... we don't know what's gonna be financially secure, at all. Like, what career, what skill set is gonna be useful in the future? It's changing real fast right now. It seems to be kind of a lie that we're telling ourselves or we're letting colleges tell us that, like, this is a job training program. It's not. You are learning how to be better at stuff. And that's gonna be useful in getting work and in doing work.

If you go to college, or if you are just... are living your life, you're gonna acquire a bunch of skills, and you're not gonna know which one of those skills are gonna turn out to be useful. You have them precisely because you don't know which ones are gonna be the ones you need. Life is not a job training program. We're not in college, we're not on Earth to get jobs. What I hope is that we're on Earth to solve problems for ourselves and for other people. And education helps that, whatever kind of education you get.

"Favorite class you took?" I thought about this for a long time. And I have decided to say anthropology, because it was just amazing for me, at that point in my life, to see how many different ways there are to be people. 

"Why is it so expensive?" I made a whole video about that actually. It's complicated. 

"Your mom goes to college..." She does not. But if she did, Thomas, I would support her...

"How expensive was it?" My school in 1998, the first year I went to school, tuition was $22,000 a year. I got some scholarship, since so was about $10,000 a year for me. And in today's dollars, that's around 14 grand a year. Tuition in aggregate is now $42,000 a year, but 97% of students get financial aid. 

"In what ways is a collage different than, say, decoupage? Or scrap booking?" Paaaaaaatttt....

"Is journalism dying?" NO! NO! Nooo, no, no. Suddenly journalism is having a revival. People are paying for it again.  

And the last question... Hey, "Cool decorating ideas?" Well, it turns out we have a back-to-school sale happening at DFTBA.com. Also... wait for it... we made a nerdfighter backpack for the first time ever. Look at those giraffes and nerdfighter crests. It's subtle. I actually designed this in partnership with Spiral, which is a company that makes really cool backpacks. We made, I think, 500 of them and there are no more after that. So, we'll see how that goes. Also got this new hoodie going on, which is super comfy and it's got these things.

And as for decorations, I would suggest getting a... a frame like this at Michael's and getting yourself a poster. DFTBA.com, currently on sale because it's back-to-school time. Having a poster on your wall, totally cool. Framing it, is like, whaaaat, who is this classy dude?

I hope that that wasn't some way, maybe, a little bit helpful for people. John, I'll see you Tuesday.

Also, Parade Magazine made a video about me and John and our history on YouTube, and you can check it out. It's... funny and cute. There's a link to that down in the description as well as to these things and also to a video that I made about why College is so expensive.