Mike Rowe, best known for his hit TV show “Dirty Jobs” and a series of Ford commercials, as some good insights when in comes to the rewards of hard work.

He recently appeared on The Glenn Beck Program to discuss his efforts with the mikeroweWORKS Foundation in challenging “the absurd belief that a four-year degree is the only path to success.”

“We’re lending money we don’t have, to kids who will never be able to pay it back, for jobs that no longer exist,” he explained, echoing what he told TheBlaze TV’s Andrew Wilkow earlier this month. “That’s crazy, right? That’s what we’ve been doing for the last forty years.”

Rowe’s motivation for the work largely began with what he described as “the worst advice in the history of the world” – a poster he saw in high school challenging students to “work smart, not hard.” The picture of the person working “smart” was holding a diploma, and the person working “hard” looked miserable performing some form of manual labor.

“Today, skilled trades are in demand. In fact, there are 3 million jobs out there that companies are having a hard time filling. So we thought that skilled trades could do with a PR campaign,” he said with a smile. “So we took the same idea, went ahead and vandalized it. Work smart AND hard.’”

And with that, he unveiled a similar photo — but with the person working hard now more successful than the person simply holding a degree.

When Beck thanked him, saying that not everyone needs an Ivy League education and he would recommend you shy away from it, though, Rowe said he wanted to make something clear.

“I’m not against a college education. I’m against debt,” he said. “That was the only four letter word in my family…”

What he’s against, Rowe added, is that we started promoting college “at the expense” of the vocational training that, in many cases, is what’s actually needed for the career.

“It’s not about, this is good or this is bad,” Rowe said. “It’s about, when did it make sense to say one size fits everybody? It never ever ever made sense to do that, and yet we’re still selling education the same way we sold it when you and I were in high school.”

Of the roughly three million jobs that companies are struggling to fill, Rowe said only 8 to 12 percent require a college degree.

“That’s not me saying don’t go to college. I’m saying, to start your life [$150,000] in the hole, [$80,000] in the hole with your art history major…that’s why you’ve got a trillion dollars in debt. These kids can’t find a job that they’ve been trained for, and the expectation is, it should be waiting for me. It ain’t.”