What kind of college Major do any of you think would benefit someone the most in REI? Out of like “Accounting; Economics; Finance; Management & Information Systems; Marketing.” It would be nice to get a degree in something and expand my knowledge and also have other job opportunities possibly.
I think that the best choice would be Business. When you operate a REI venture, you are really running a business. Therefore, I would choose a general business degree, which should include all of the things you talked about: accounting, economics, finance, management, marketing, etc.
Mike
I would just take the classes that would benfit me as opposed to earning a degree. I feel that I would be wasting time taking classes like gym that will not benifit and take away precious time. I am an engineering asst. and was in a program to get my A.A.S in mechanical engineering. I dropped that and am taking the course that realtors take. I don’t want to be a realtor but I will learn what they know. I am also taking a class on REI that explains different types of financing. They have classes to become a buiding inspector that I plan on taking also. I amy even take macro and micro economics.
Time is valuable and I would hate to spend my time in classes that will not benifit me.
This is how I got my start.After all of those classes, you still find yourself back here pushing kool-aid for another company. Successful investors just simply don't do that.
It’s about helping other’s You don’t seem to understand kool-aid man. I’m not pushing anything. Just providing insight. Experienced people help others.
I have my marketing degree and it has helped a bit. If you have the entrepreneur spirit and real estate didnt work out at least you would have a solid education in one of the most important aspects of any business.
I do know quite a few realtors that skipped college and went into selling real estate and many of them were making 6 figures before they would have even graduated college.
I think education is very important, but I still think I could learn more about business from just a couple of good books rather than 4 years or in my case 6 years of college. It is a great time to travel, party, and meet people.
While you are at college do some wholesaling, I sure wish I would have known how easy it was. Rather than wasting a summer at a 10/hr construction job, I could have just done 1 wholesale deal a year and made twice as much.
Eric Medemar
Eric Medemar
I recently finished my degree in Sports Management and Marketing. IF I would have known about REI sooner I probably would have changed majors. I took one business class called “Intro to Entrepreneurship” and it changed my whole outlook on my life. I realized that I do not want to work for anybody (except maybe the tax man). Although I’m not there yet, I know I will be someday soon.
My advice, take classes you know will help you in the long run…Even better if your deadest on doing one thing, take your tuition money and start investing.
alexk1100,
If you have the opportunity to go to college, I would do it. Get a degree that will actually allow you to make some money.
Most people live a long time and a lot of things can happen during that time. Having a degree can open many doors, even if you don’t actually practice in that field. Many people on REI websites try to be encouraging, which is fine. However, many of these same people have little or no experience and others have quite another agenda - to fleece unsuspecting newbies out of their hard earned money.
The TRUTH is that becoming a full time REI investor is NOT easy. One of the gurus told me that 95% of the people who buy their courses never do anything with them. Of those that do try, the vast majority never even do a single deal. Of those that do actually do a deal and start a business, the vast majority are out of business in a short period of time.
Tony apparently took the Neuvo Riche $16,000 “education”. Instead of making his fortune doing real estate, he is constantly on here trying to “give back” by getting a big commission selling Neuvo Riche to newbies. That speaks volumes to me. Others are constantly trying to sell their services to newbies by putting little advertisements in their posts.
There are a few full time investors here and a few are making good money. However, the vast majority of those that try fail. Why limit your future? That’s not being negative, it is simply a fact. Get your education.
I do agree with Eric on one thing (there’s a first for everything). You could certainly try REI while you are attending college. If you can make it work, that will certaily add to your education and your wallet!
Good Luck,
Mike
They don’t have those classes here. I can find seminars like that but The OP was talking college courses. Honestly, I never thought of taking those seminars and your most provided motivation to find some. Thanks.
Tony has made so much money from all of that “knowledge” he gained that he is here trying to sell you the very same courses he paid 16k for so he can get half of the tuition. Without signing people up for this cult, he would be totally broke. That shows the level of “education” this cult provides. In a previous post he stated that the only thing he does is wholesale. He could of saved 16k and learned how to wholesale by reading the wholesale threads on this forum.
He is not an investor, he drank some cyanide-laced kool aid and he’s here to sell you the same. They practice voo-doo and sacrifice animals when they get together as they sit in a candle-lit garage of one of the members.
Whao, where do I sign up?
Actually, you can’t just sign up.
First you have to sell your house and give all your money to NR. Then once you’ve paid, you have to start wearing aluminum foil on your head 24/7 to block out the death rays and “mind control” from other “education”. Then theres the tattoo. It’s a 5 pointed star with a circle around it that you MUST have to be granted entrance.
Now the fun begins. “The Training Camp” - I could tell you about this but then I’d have to kill you. Once you graduate from this camp, you will actually know less about real estate investing but instead you will become a full timer kool-aid seller and lifetime cult member. You’ll have meetings occasionally with the other members to discuss “things” and other official “business”.
The only reason I know so much about this cult is because I used to know a guy who was a member. He broke the code and told me everything, then NR found out… haven’t seen him since.
College is tricky. College does NOT teach you how to make money. Even the majors in the business school don’t teach you how to make money. It teaches you how to use the tools that tell you if you made money or not. If you want to be a real estate investor; you have to make enough money from real estate to fund your lifestyle (living expenses < real estate income). My advise is to major in the field that makes you the most money from a job. You then put that money into real estate. But that is the trap. I have a BS in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA. I run a corporate group at an international company. That means I make a lot of money from my job. I have a lot of cash to invest wherever I want to. But it also means I can make a lot of money and not go through the headache of owning property. I can work a relatively normal length day and after work head off to the country club for 9 holes of golf before dinner. The motivation of most real estate investors is that they can make a lot more money in real estate than at their jobs. I am different. I can live like rock star on my salary. But I want the lifestyle not the money. I have to be at my job traveling the globe instead of at home with my family. That is my attraction to real estate. I have to spend the time after work to look for properties or check up on rehabs etc. That being said, major in whatever gets you the biggest paycheck with the most spare time you can. Engineers tend to make a lot of money right out of school working 8 to 4:30. That gives you a reasonable amount of the day left to do your real estate. And if you continue to live your lifestyle like a college student (don’t’ go out a buy a shiny new car) even after you take a job pulling down $60k for 2 to 3 years, you will have enough seed money to buy as much real estate you want. The trick is not to start living up to that income.
Very Good Question as I hear this ask a lot now days!
I myself went for Business nad Computer Science at UNC and it was a good foundation to build on.
I mean until you get your REI business up and running you still need to pay the bills, and put food on the table, have health coverage etc so make sure you enjoy what ever it is you are going for!
So my new take on college is “college teaches you one thing and one thing only!”
“How to get a Job, not how to make money” 
I went for a total of 5 yrs and had a good job for years. (so I know what I am talking about)
Now I don’t let my education stand in the way of how much I can earn! 
(hopefully you find this out much sooner than I did)
By learrning all you can from the people who are actually doing investing and getting a mentor or educator to show you the ropes and working 110% at it and taking action are the best teachers I have found.
I have seen many good investors who are not good teachers as a side note.
I am always learning more about Real Estate Investing and taking action.
I really do enjoy what I do, even though I do run into some negative people but I just stay away from those types. They just try to bring you down is all.
The important thing is NOT the money, but enjoying what you do.
I wish you success!
I agree with the people who said any degree that will make you money is good. Try to also get into some classes that teach some business skills (if that’s not your major) and sales. But I would definately try to pursue a degree if I were you (and you are able to), like propertymanager said.
I went to school for 4 years (actually, 3.5 years). I got student loans totalling about $14k. I just made my last student loan payment last week after 8 years of paying. So, you can look at it like this:
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4 years of school + 8 years of paying = 12 years
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$16,000 in payments and interest paid
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~$520,000 in income produced over those 12 years due to degree.
Annualized ROI is something like 134% (and GROWING).
All good advice on this board. There’s no unique plan or formula that’s better than the next. Working with a trusted mentor whom you know has a good track record in the field would be ideal. What works for one person may not work for another as we all have our strengths and weaknesses. Time is money and money is time.
You probably already have a good idea of what’s involved with REI and real estate in general. If your math and business skills are not where you want them to be consider taking business/financial, marketing, economic classes and seminars. Provisional real estate classes will teach you the basics, and broker classes will teach you advanced levels. The math involved in either case is fairly complex but is essential to be successful in planning and negotiating the various deals.
This website offers a tremendous amount of information from people with varied levels of real estate experience. Know what your academic weaknesses are as it relates to your chosen field/major and go from there.
I tend to feel the opposite way about college. Traditionally structured education is not set up to teach YOU, individually. It takes people with all different levels of intelligence, with all different ways of thinking, and conforms them to be almost identical. With the simplified grading systems, you end up storing the information given in the class in your short term memory, only for the bulk of it to be forgotten. Seriously, how many people remember high school algebra? With the exception of a few engineers, no one KNOWS algebra, yet most of us remembered what we needed to pass the class.
If being an entreprenuer is your goal, college is the enemy. It stifles creativity and the structure is counterproductive to ones success. The only “higher” education I’ve received is from the military. You could argue that the military is nothing but structured education, but the most important thing I learned was how to improvise. That’s not something you can learn in a classroom. If you want to learn the business of real estate investing, just get started, it doesn’t require a degree in anything and it’s not very difficult. It’s probably the most popular of all businesses. There are courses, books, television shows, mentoring programs, forums and more to give you the basic knowledge to get started.
Have a nice day. 8)
I both agree and disagree with DannyTheGreat.
Traditional schools up to and including the Bachelors level are mostly structured to teach the basics. High school education and below is structured from historical purposes when the government needed to build a sustained workforce (i.e., basic writing, reading, and arithmetic). Bachelors programs are geared toward teaching the foundations of a particular subject with some advanced concepts thrown in. It’s at the Masters and Doctoral levels where a persons individual creativity is fully expressed. That’s the part I agree.
However, I disagree that college is the so-called enemy, because it stifles innovation and creativity. If that were the case, some of the biggest business leaders today would be nothing more than panhandlers on a street corner. Creativity and innovation is something that not only comes with knowledge learned by reading and doing, but also by one’s own mindset. I work with people who have Ph.D.'s, who have filed over 100 patents, yet they still work for someone else. I also worked with people who weren’t as technically intelligent, but quit working to open up a successful business. Both were innovative, but one chose what they felt was a “secure” path while another decided to set fear aside and take the plunge into business ownership. As one person earliler mentioned, after all the dust is settled, perhaps less than 1% of the people who start in the real estate investing industry ever actually make it a career. I know the numbers for people who start and actually finish college are not 100%, but I guarantee they are probably higher than 1%.
The systems of education are build on the concept that you must retain the information given in class long enough to pass the tests. I wish I could remember a study I read that took students of a class and gave them the final test to achieve their degree. They all passed. 30 days after they had graduated, they gave them all the very same test and they ALL failed. That’s hardly what I’d call learning. The fact of the matter is most “knowledge” gained from school has no practical purpose even if students did remember the course content for more than 30 days.
From what I’ve seen, the most creative of people are not those with Ph.D.'s. That’s not to say there aren’t any, but most have been conforming to the educational “system” for so long they don’t know any other way to think. In school, you read out of a book, or you listen to the teacher/ professor talk, you take notes and remember what you can, then a week later take a test to see how well you remembered it. People who have been doing this for many years are hindered in their ability to CREATE information, because for so long their learning has only progressed through finding already discovered information. It’s harder for someone who has been reading out of a textbook for years, to think outside the textbook and be truly innovative. A person who has not had defined structure in their thinking has a better ability to create, because they’ve had to struggle to “survive” a little more.
This is not to say that there aren’t people of all levels of education capable or incapable of anything. But those who have progressed in their development of education with structure, typically will come out in a more structured way of thinking.
Real estate is a very diverse field requiring both creativity, mathmatic skills, salesmanship ability, and organizational skills. Both book acknowledge and experience go hand-in-hand and are equally needed to survive and succeed in any field.
One example, when I was in banking and working with a client sitting in front me discussing the various loan structures our computers went down. I no longer had access to our computerized system of calculating interest, discount points, origination fees, APR, debt-to-income ratios to qualify the client. I pulled out my basic manual calculator and proceeded with the calculations. What I learned from school and the books got me through this area of the meeting. Creativity came in handy when explaining and condencing down the information in a way my client could understand. I survived the situation through competence of knowing the basics. This experience taught me a valuable lesson.
The opportunity to earn various degrees are open to anyone. Successful college graduates go on to build succesful careers because they understand the concepts of their chosen major/field and this is money well-spent. They can hit the ground running with a competent approach while learning the reality of the business along the way. However, there are others who have earned degrees who assume that once out of college they’ll learn all they need to know in the workforce by riding the coat-tails of others…huge mistake. I’ve worked with both. In banking, this could be the difference in a new college graduate starting out as a teller or a lender. Both are tough jobs but the money is made on the lending side.