Maybe you're going to be better off actually making money doing real things. And the reality is this is a study that I'm trying to convince the people over at Chev in Virginia to do. I'd like to see what the long-term life, making money from having a college degree.
I'd like to see those numbers when you take STEM out because my assumption is now, and I think we've probably discussed this briefly in this space at some point, that my assumption is now that if you take STEM out of that completely, that the people that are in the trades are making far more money over their life, like over the term of their life than the people that just have normal college liberal arts degrees. I bet you that that number is drastically higher. Oh, stop.
Walter, so you don't think it's worth spending $200,000 on a poly-sci degree? Because I had a staffer. I'm not even kidding. I had one of my staffers in my office.
He always complained about cash, and I paid very well because I paid hazard pay because of all the insanity, whatever. He always complained about money. And in one sitting with us, he's like, when do I qualify because the government has an incentive to help pay your student loans if you have government student loans.
So if you work for the federal government, they'll help you pay half of whatever your monthly payment is up to, I think, $800. So anybody who goes and gets a federal job, that being the perk, they maximize, I'll pay $800 a month since the government will pay $800 a month. And this is a program, I don't think it's all the federal government, but it's extended to Congress if your degree is applicable to your job.
It's outside law, whatever, right? So we're sitting down. This kid, sweet kid, very hard worker, tells us he had $200,000 worth of student loans. And then I turned around and humbly go like, what degree did you get? Did you go to law school? He's like, no, I have a political science degree.
I said, wow. I just sat there like, what is a political science degree, right? You don't need a degree to understand politics. All you needed to do is pay attention to your civics class.
Okay, so there's this scam, as Walter just said, on telling kids that they need to go to college. Here's a little example. I had to get my oil changed today.
