I mean I sold 4 years of my life to the military to not have to take loans out, so I get the gut reaction
The main cause of the student loan issue is the commodification of education. Everyone wanted to go to college and at first it was optional but then as more people did it it became a requirement, then they realized they can charge more and more for education that is worse and worse because a good chunk of people dont actually want to learn / be there. They’re just there for the paper that’ll let them get jobs and not be unemployed, or even just to say that they went.
I look around and people are playing damn Pokémon Showdown in class, there was that one scandal of an influencer girl who was the daughter of someone important that bought her admission to Stanford(?) and would stream literally about how she didn’t care about education she just wanted the college experience.
Hot take: Not everyone should be going to college, High School should just prepare people better. Even if we forgive all loans right now it doesn’t fix the issue. Instead of your problem it will just be your kids’ problem
While I agree in theory, I’m not really sure there’s much that can be done in practice. The genie is out of the bottle here: jobs want the paper, so people get the paper, leading to jobs expecting people to have the paper. An employer is unlikely to deliberately “lower their standards” (in their view) if the pool of potential employees with a degree is large enough for their needs already. Since you can’t legislate that employers are not allowed to require a degree, and you can’t expect people to not get a degree and sacrifice their own potential future to break that cycle, we’re kind of at an impasse.
That’s why the only way forward that anyone’s figured out so far is government funded higher education.
It also reinforces the class system. ‘elite’ employers won’t even look at you if you don’t come from an ivy or a top 5/10 school.
and there are fewer and fewer of these ‘elite’ jobs to go around, hence the paranoia among the upper middle classes that their children will have zero future if they don’t get into an ivy.
I mean I sold 4 years of my life to the military to not have to take loans out, so I get the gut reaction
The main cause of the student loan issue is the commodification of education. Everyone wanted to go to college and at first it was optional but then as more people did it it became a requirement, then they realized they can charge more and more for education that is worse and worse because a good chunk of people dont actually want to learn / be there. They’re just there for the paper that’ll let them get jobs and not be unemployed, or even just to say that they went.
I look around and people are playing damn Pokémon Showdown in class, there was that one scandal of an influencer girl who was the daughter of someone important that bought her admission to Stanford(?) and would stream literally about how she didn’t care about education she just wanted the college experience.
Hot take: Not everyone should be going to college, High School should just prepare people better. Even if we forgive all loans right now it doesn’t fix the issue. Instead of your problem it will just be your kids’ problem
While I agree in theory, I’m not really sure there’s much that can be done in practice. The genie is out of the bottle here: jobs want the paper, so people get the paper, leading to jobs expecting people to have the paper. An employer is unlikely to deliberately “lower their standards” (in their view) if the pool of potential employees with a degree is large enough for their needs already. Since you can’t legislate that employers are not allowed to require a degree, and you can’t expect people to not get a degree and sacrifice their own potential future to break that cycle, we’re kind of at an impasse.
That’s why the only way forward that anyone’s figured out so far is government funded higher education.
Edit:typos
It also reinforces the class system. ‘elite’ employers won’t even look at you if you don’t come from an ivy or a top 5/10 school.
and there are fewer and fewer of these ‘elite’ jobs to go around, hence the paranoia among the upper middle classes that their children will have zero future if they don’t get into an ivy.
Trades are a good option, but how long before plumbing drones are crawling through the sewers?
That would be lit
What makes you think they aren’t already?