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Blue collar white Americans are being replaced by cheaper, less demanding migrant labour. It is a bad time for those that are not academically gifted.

josefresco 11y ago
You need to be a lot more than "academically gifted" to make it in today's America. In fact, "academically gifted" probably means you have crushing student debt.
- adventured 11y ago
  That's incorrect. See: unemployment rate among Americans with a four year degree, or any college experience at all for that matter. The unemployment rate is hyper low. That unemployment rate is half that of the European Union, as is the unemployment rate across the board in the US. More people in the US are moving up from middle skill jobs to higher skill, better paying jobs, than are falling from middle skill to lower skill jobs: http://i.imgur.com/WLJ73C7.png http://i.imgur.com/WLJ73C7.png If you want to talk about crushing debt, see: Canada, Australia, UK, Japan, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Netherlands - all of which have worse household debt to income levels than the US (including the student debt in the equation). Canada's household debt to income ratio, as one example, is now nearly twice that of the US. Denmark's is three times that of the US; Norway's is over twice that of the US. The US also has a lower share of adults still living with their parents compared to most of Europe. In some cases, dramatically lower (Portugal is 44% vs 14% for the US). The US has one of the highest median incomes, and median disposable incomes. Higher than: Germany, UK, France, Spain, Italy, etc. The US has a higher median net household wealth level than Germany or Sweden. The US median student debt among people with any student debt, is $13,000. Household debt to income levels have been falling for six straight years, and are back to normalized levels last seen during the boom days of the 1990s. What you're claiming, doesn't hold up under any scrutiny.
  - josefresco 11y ago
    Statistics are fun. Obviously getting a degree is important and will set you ahead of someone without - saying there is no problem with America's higher education market is not something I can agree with.
- pnathan 11y ago
  Most complaints about student debt being super high either relate to law/medical school or the cost of Ivy League/SLA schools on the east coast. College is expensive, and it's bad, but private schools are an order of magnitude more expensive; the popular narrative typically ignores public schools which cost roughly 50-80K for an undergraduate degree, depending on location. Private schools run around 200K+ at full cost, I believe. I personally sucked up a fairly large of debt because I made several poor choices. This is not the case, in general, for my peers, who chose better.
  - josefresco 11y ago
    The state school I attended 15 years ago cost $24,000 per year for out of state students. Middle of the road (academically) universities then, were running in the 30's, with Ivy Leagues in the 40's (per year) - It is much higher now.

josefresco 11y ago

You need to be a lot more than "academically gifted" to make it in today's America. In fact, "academically gifted" probably means you have crushing student debt.

adventured 11y ago
That's incorrect. See: unemployment rate among Americans with a four year degree, or any college experience at all for that matter. The unemployment rate is hyper low. That unemployment rate is half that of the European Union, as is the unemployment rate across the board in the US. More people in the US are moving up from middle skill jobs to higher skill, better paying jobs, than are falling from middle skill to lower skill jobs: http://i.imgur.com/WLJ73C7.png http://i.imgur.com/WLJ73C7.png If you want to talk about crushing debt, see: Canada, Australia, UK, Japan, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Netherlands - all of which have worse household debt to income levels than the US (including the student debt in the equation). Canada's household debt to income ratio, as one example, is now nearly twice that of the US. Denmark's is three times that of the US; Norway's is over twice that of the US. The US also has a lower share of adults still living with their parents compared to most of Europe. In some cases, dramatically lower (Portugal is 44% vs 14% for the US). The US has one of the highest median incomes, and median disposable incomes. Higher than: Germany, UK, France, Spain, Italy, etc. The US has a higher median net household wealth level than Germany or Sweden. The US median student debt among people with any student debt, is $13,000. Household debt to income levels have been falling for six straight years, and are back to normalized levels last seen during the boom days of the 1990s. What you're claiming, doesn't hold up under any scrutiny.
- josefresco 11y ago
  Statistics are fun. Obviously getting a degree is important and will set you ahead of someone without - saying there is no problem with America's higher education market is not something I can agree with.
pnathan 11y ago
Most complaints about student debt being super high either relate to law/medical school or the cost of Ivy League/SLA schools on the east coast. College is expensive, and it's bad, but private schools are an order of magnitude more expensive; the popular narrative typically ignores public schools which cost roughly 50-80K for an undergraduate degree, depending on location. Private schools run around 200K+ at full cost, I believe. I personally sucked up a fairly large of debt because I made several poor choices. This is not the case, in general, for my peers, who chose better.
- josefresco 11y ago
  The state school I attended 15 years ago cost $24,000 per year for out of state students. Middle of the road (academically) universities then, were running in the 30's, with Ivy Leagues in the 40's (per year) - It is much higher now.