Although Information can be free, education is not.

[Shiloh Lundahl]

We are no longer in the industrial age. We are now in the Information Age. And therefore, there are some who believe with the proliferation of information and the ease of googling everything that most information is free. And truthfully most information is just about free and can be obtained by asking Siri or by simply finishing the sentence, “Ok Google...”

The danger of living in at a time with so much free information is that some people mistakenly believe that information equals education. They believe that if they have information about something than they are educated on the subject and therefore qualified to propagate the information widely. One example of this that I can think of is with Clayton Morris with Morris Invest. I went to meet up for lunch with an investor who wanted to take me out to lunch and ask me questions about investing. At lunch he stated that he was in the learning phase and that one person he liked listening to was Clayton Morris. After listening for awhile, I shared with him that the problem with listening to Clayton, or others like him, is that his advice about buying cheap houses in the Midwest from out of state, and having them managed by a property manager, doesn’t work. The numbers might look good on paper but the maintenance, repairs, turnover, and vacancy makes the model not work for most investors. You see, Clayton shared information that sounded great, however, those who were educated about buying out-of-state properties in the hood or the ghetto warned against the model because, while it may look good on paper, it doesn’t work in actuality. Those who trusted Clayton, and ended up losing 50k - 80k, got an education. Their incorrect information became a real expensive education.

So even though information now a days is free or nearly free, education still has a cost. You can either pay upfront with money for someone who really knows (who is actually educated themselves) to show you or teach you, or you can pay with time trying to sift through all the available information trying to determine which information is correct and more accurate, or you can pay on the backend as you pay to fix your mistakes.

There are so many people here on BiggerPockets that are anti paying for education. They are in the confused state of thinking information equals education. And then they blast their anti-paid-education opinion all over the place as they promote their free information dogma. Newer investors who come to learn start to believe the repeated “You don’t need to pay for education, you can learn anything you want right here on BiggerPockets by just reading in the forums and by listening to the podcasts.” and although listening to the podcasts and reading in the forums can be great, it doesn’t take the place of a real education from from someone truly experienced or by working alongside someone who is actively doing the things you want to learn. 

So while information may be free or nearly free, education has a cost. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter.