Is education an asset? This is one of the questions I steadily ask myself without being able to truly answer the question. But today, I finally conclude that education is an asset. One that is easily more Risker than Bitcoin.
What is an asset.
An asset is anything you own that has a monetary value. It can exist as a financial asset or a real asset.
financial assets just as the name implies refer to the assets that are that cannot be physically held rather owners of that asset lay claim to it via a certificate of ownership issued by the seller or company...examples are the stock market and the crypto market.
Real assets are most of those assets that you can see and touch, like cars, jewelry, land, houses, etc.
Now with this being said, I ask myself where does education fit into all of this? And then I remember that during each level of education we are issued a certificate, one that confirms our completion of a course of study. This means that education is a financial asset.
if education is a financial asset, why are people not getting rich from it?
The truth is that just like every other financial asset there are people who get rich with it and there are people who do not. There are also people classified as whales who own the power to shift the asset to any direction of their choice. Take crypto for example.
There are big holders, "whales", and minute holders( retails). The presence of the retails in the market is important because it helps to acknowledge the asset as a marketable asset, hence, forcing transactions to and from the ledger.
And then, there are the "whales", whose main purpose is to drive the market price higher by buying a large amount of the existing product making it scarce and therefore increasing its price. But in a situation where the whales decide to dump all of their accumulated stocks or crypto. It could very well shake the market as the price will be reduced because what was once scarce, is now surplus.
So how does this apply to education as an asset ?
It is simple, just like in the crypto-market we have whales in the education system with a more diverse educational certificate(portfolio), and these whales decided the fate of every other certificate holder by either limiting the job opportunities or multiplying them.
Finally, to you education may not be an asset because of one or more disadvantages.
But in true honesty, it is an asset, and just like any other asset, there are risks and returns, and profits can be made not just only by holding but also by diversifying your portfolio.