Scott Galloway went on a nostalgic tear about the massive return on investment of his public education, highlighting how a nearly free degree set up his entire career. Speaking on Pivot, he pointed to his alma mater, UCLA, as the ultimate engine of upward mobility. He credited "the generosity of California taxpayers and the vision of, of the Regents of the University of California are literally why I'm, why I'm here with you now," pointing out that his total tuition for five years of undergraduate study and two years of graduate school amounted to just "seven thousand dollars."
Galloway also contrasted the university's past accessibility with today's ultra-competitive landscape. He noted that during his application era, the "acceptance rate at UCLA is seventy-four percent," humorously adding that he was initially "one of the twenty-six percent that didn't get in" before reapplying and getting accepted due to the system's "capacity and bandwidth."
But the cheap, public-school Eden didn't last long once Scott Galloway graduated. On The Prof G Pod, he explained that his transition from the university into the financial sector was a brutal wake-up call. He described his first job at Morgan Stanley, which he took "right out of UCLA," as "the most toxic work environment I worked at," even going so far as to call the culture "abusive probably" after having a chair thrown at him.
As the debate over rising tuition costs and elite university admissions policies continues to dominate higher education discussions, Galloway's reflections serve as a stark reminder of what public state systems used to offer. Whether modern flagship universities like UCLA can ever return to that level of taxpayer-funded accessibility remains the multi-billion-dollar question.