The Millionaire Next Door

Tom Hanks’ Movies: $8 billion – I owe it all to community college

Tom Hanks’ movies have grossed over $8 billion worldwide.  If you read his recent op-ed “I owe it all to community college” in The New York Times  you might understand why he should be nominated for an honorary membership in the millionaire next door club. 

So what if he graduated from a public high school,

an underachieving student with lousy SAT scores”. . . .  I couldn’t afford tuition for college anyway. . . . [So it was off] to Chabot, a community college . . . which because it accepted everyone and was free, would be my alma mater.

According to Hanks, he received an excellent education “all free but for the effort and the cost of used textbooks. . . .  . . . that place made me what I am today.”

Hanks may not have aced the SAT but he was extremely creative and insightful about gathering resources at Chabot which were used in perfecting his chosen occupation.  Also, as I stated in The Millionaire Next Door, economically successful people demonstrate an uncanny ability to select the right occupation, i.e. one that they love and that is financially rewarding as well.

Hanks obviously had a great deal of discipline in terms of selecting specific courses and professors on the basis of his chosen vocation.  As evidence of his discipline, he invites the reader to examine Chabot’s library take-out slip on the celebrated actor Jason Robards’ monologues of Eugene O’Neill’s The Ice Man Cometh.  Hanks listened to these recordings at least 20 times. 

Classes I took at Chabot have rippled through my professional pond

In fact Hanks gives credit to his history professor “whose lectures were riveting” for the outline format he adopted for his HBO mini-series, “John Adams.”

If you follow Hanks’ lead in taking advantage of the resources available at the majority of community colleges and 4 year colleges/universities in America you can get an excellent education.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *