Clear, candid conversations about college, Degree Free paths, and the future of work.

Hannah Maruyama is the Founder of Degree Free, a custom career planning company helping families and young adults make practical decisions about college, debt, skills, and work, and the author of The Degree Free Way. Her work has reached more than 63 million people, built an audience of 588,000 social followers, earned 286K+ podcast downloads, and helped 18,000+ families. A go-to voice on college ROI, AI-era careers, and skills-first hiring, she has been featured in Fox Business, CNBC, Business Insider, Newsweek, and USA Today.

After building her own career in AI and machine learning without a four-year degree, Hannah Maruyama founded Degree Free to give families a clear-eyed alternative to the assumption that college is the only respectable path. Through her book The Degree Free Way, her programs, and The Hannah Maruyama Show, she breaks down college ROI and the real alternatives: apprenticeships, licenses, paid training, portfolio careers, and entrepreneurship. She also covers how the AI era is changing what entry-level work looks like.

Her approach is practical and direct: name the real costs, show the numbers, and hand people a concrete next step. She speaks to parents, teens, and the employers rethinking how they hire. She's equally at home on a business-news set and on a conference main stage.