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Great news, the concept that you need college to succeed was one of the greatest lies told to my generation. Pleased the next generation is waking up. End of t

Great news, the concept that you need college to succeed was one of the greatest lies told to my generation. Pleased the next generation is waking up. End of the day if the loan can't be written off, if the loan is just handed out to 18 year olds and has almost no limit then the organization that asks for the loan will inevitably balloon out of all proportion and no longer be reflective at all of the value you get back for almost all cases. I say that as someone who managed to actually pay off their student loan, dread to think how people who are late 30s, still renting and still with 5 figures of college debt feel. Hope this trend continues, why throw away the down payment of a mortgage to an institution that has spent the past decade telling you they don't want you. If in 10 years I'm seeing headlines about colleges unable to stay open from low admissions I'll be smiling.

RandomLensman 5y ago
Maybe, but I think it conflates two things: i) getting a college education and ii) the price of it. Maybe the price in the US just isn't right anymore. At the same time, the "elites" do make sure their offspring does get a prestigious (signaling) college/university education. So baring big changes to how society is run, some things will be difficult to get to without a college education.
- thatfrenchguy 5y ago
  > Maybe the price in the US just isn't right anymore. Has it be right since at least the 1990s though? There’s clear divergence between income and college costs in the USA, and it’s hard to see why, given everyone in the industry seems to be taking a part of the honey pot. Seriously, how did we arrive to “textbook for a semester are more expensive than tuition is in other counties”?
  - alisonkisk 5y ago
    Not all college is not expensive. Diploma mills and elite colleges and pseudo-elite private colleges are expensive. Liberal arts degrees are expensive. Your local public community/technical college has great ROI for a career-related field. In most states, your public university has a great ROI as well. (If you are paying full price, it may be because you are on the "diploma mills" track within a multi-track school)
  - zabzonk 5y ago
    > Seriously, how did we arrive to “textbook for a semester are more expensive than tuition is in other counties”? Academic corruption. They get kickbacks from the publishers for forcing these (always crap) textbooks on their students.
    - bernulli 5y ago
      That's not really a thing. Also, wait till you hear how much an academic makes from the articles they publish, and from those lucrative research grants from big-[oil,pharma,etc].
      - zabzonk 5y ago
        > That's not really a thing. Sorry, it is. I've worked in higher education and I've seen it happen. What other explanation do you have for the sales of these ludicrous "textbooks"?
        jjk166 5y ago
        It's not like there is a cheap alternative that the professors can switch to. All new edition textbooks are expensive. They can't specify out of print editions because then you can't guarantee that your students can get access to them, and the textbook companies update the problems in the books just enough to make using a different edition from the one specified impractical. Some publishers may incentivize using their particular textbook, but there isn't some vast conspiracy to jack up prices. The fact is textbooks are a niche product with a steep demand curve that can be paid for with subsidized loans, of course they're going to be ridiculously overpriced.
        zabzonk 5y ago
        Then don't require (note, require) students to buy textbooks at all - what are these lecturers supposed to be doing? Are there no libraries. Don't outdate them every year to make second hand ones useless. > ridiculously overpriced Well, you admit it yourself. And the books aren't even any good!
- unpolloloco 5y ago
  The other problem is that prices have no relation to quality. The random private university that will saddle you with $250k in debt and no job prospects costs the same as Harvard, which will both give you more aid and give you a foot in the door pretty much anywhere. But the marketing to kids has been all about finding the right "fit" - not finding the school that will actually land them a job for a reasonable value. And to top that off, career "fit" has been marketed so hard to kids that no one wants to go into specialized trades, which will both almost definitely pay way better and be way more fulfilling than the random inside sales job that they land right out of school
dougmwne 5y ago
I don't think your conclusion is suggested by the statistics in the article. There is a decline in enrollment, but it is heavily focused on men and white men are even slightly behind other ethnicities. This holds true even for very high household incomes where the ROI on a degree is less important than the social prestige of being in a white collar career. If college was a bad deal, you would see women opting out as well.
- SuoDuanDao 5y ago
  >If college was a bad deal, you would see women opting out as well. Not necessarily. Bad deals are generally taken due to deceptive marketing, something that drove a lot of the college applications over the last two generations. If deceptive marketing is still in play but one group, e.g. American men, is no longer being targeted...
- treis 5y ago
  A large generalization but in my experience women operate under the assumption that they will marry a partner that has equal or greater earning potential. Men assume that they will have to support their partner. The other part of this is kids and biological reality. Can't imagine doing a trade or physical job while pregnant. Even after birth it took my wife a solid year or more before she was physically back to "normal".
- zefool 5y ago
  Overall enrollment is down as well. It's mentioned in the article.
rgrieselhuber 5y ago
The marketing on this to Gen X was incredibly effective as well. There was this pervading "common sense" that if you didn't go to college, you weren't going to be able to attract the kind of spouse that you wanted, or that you would somehow be looked down on in the reproductive market. The smart ones figured out that this was actually a handy way to filter out superficial candidates. Fast forward 25 years, and I see many middle-aged men who are dissatisfied with their corporate lives but haven't build any income potential in something other than corporate America, so they are stuck in jobs that are increasingly subject to the pressures of globalism, etc.
- sjg007 5y ago
  We can’t all be plumbers.. college is worth it. You get access to technology. For computers it was that way until the 90s when you could get access outside of universities. All of the front end JavaScript web apps will be replaced with automation and drag and drop UIs. This will let some people scale but all those code academy kids will need to find new skills.
  - rgrieselhuber 5y ago
    Computer Science graduates have done well and will continue to do well, although figuring out a post-40s career strategy is a huge necessity. Other fields, other than the specialties? Many will continue to suffer, IMO.
    - sjg007 5y ago
      Where does this post 40s mean come from? I mean, seriously... it makes no sense.
      - wing-_-nuts 5y ago
        Ageism. Yes, there are 50 year old devs that are on the cutting edge of their field, and still doing well, but by 40 you're looked at with increased skepticism if you haven't made your way into management
ashtonkem 5y ago
> Great news, the concept that you need college to succeed was one of the greatest lies told to my generation. I guess it means what you mean by “succeed”. Going to college is and always has been a reliable way towards earning more money[0]. The issue isn’t that college doesn’t work, the issue is that it’s basically an asset bubble of sorts and the cost exceeded its value. If huge chunks of future generations skip college because it’s unaffordable, that will be bad for us as a society. It would be much better to reduce the cost of college so that it’s more valuable for more people, rather than having younger generations opt out due to the high cost. 0 - Degree dependent, of course. Music degrees have been always poorly valued by the market.
- rgrieselhuber 5y ago
  Bad for us as a society how?
  - racl101 5y ago
    I imagine their point is people forgoing a post secondary education.
    - rgrieselhuber 5y ago
      The conflation of college with education was natural and understandable until the last 10-15 years, but that appears to be changing.
      - Grakel 5y ago
        Well said. Today it's a dating camp that you attend after high school before you settle into the debt economy.
      - racl101 5y ago
        I agree as well. I'm just speculating about OP's point. Now you can get a pretty decent education from watching lots of videos and an education that commensurate with one that you'd plunk down thousands of dollars for at a university or college. Especially in the era of COVID where they would have you watch videos anyways during a period of lockdown. So glad I'm not a student right now. I'd feel so ripped off.
twoslide 5y ago
Is the issue higher education (colleges/universities) or higher education finance? Sounds like the latter.
- whywhywhywhy 5y ago
  The two are linked inseparably. To have higher education without the astronomical loans that hold the current system up you'd need an entirely new system.
pc86 5y ago
35, renting and another 12k left here. I am in the (relatively) lucky position that my loans are only about 6% interest so it's not quite an emergency for me to pay them back. Selfishly I stopped making extra payments to see if Biden actually kept his campaign promise of a minimum $10k forgiveness, but of course as soon as he was elected that disappeared. I know classmates of mine (2008) who still have 20, 30, 40k in debt. Even some of the kids who came from a bit of family money still struggled for the better part of their 20's to pay everything back.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mywittyname 5y ago
You're conflating college with student loans. Not everyone who goes to college comes out with tons, or even any debt. Additionally, federal loans for undergraduate degrees are capped (to ~$35kish right now). It is graduate school where people end up with six-figures of high interest debt, as graduate loans are unlimited. You don't need to go to college to be successful, but the data speaks for itself. College graduates have always, on average, earned more and enjoyed significantly lower unemployment. Even if that weren't the case, the fact that college-level jobs are easier on the body and people can generally do them well for 20+ years longer is a huge benefit. I was raised by two blue collar people and my parents were big on college. My father worked as an electrician and even by the time I was 16, his body was starting to give out. He's basically unable to ply his trade at this point due to several complications related to his career, and works a near-minimum wage office job now. I'm sure he would gladly trade half a years salary when he was 18 to get an additional 20 high-earning working years.

RandomLensman 5y ago

Maybe, but I think it conflates two things: i) getting a college education and ii) the price of it. Maybe the price in the US just isn't right anymore. At the same time, the "elites" do make sure their offspring does get a prestigious (signaling) college/university education. So baring big changes to how society is run, some things will be difficult to get to without a college education.

thatfrenchguy 5y ago
> Maybe the price in the US just isn't right anymore. Has it be right since at least the 1990s though? There’s clear divergence between income and college costs in the USA, and it’s hard to see why, given everyone in the industry seems to be taking a part of the honey pot. Seriously, how did we arrive to “textbook for a semester are more expensive than tuition is in other counties”?
- alisonkisk 5y ago
  Not all college is not expensive. Diploma mills and elite colleges and pseudo-elite private colleges are expensive. Liberal arts degrees are expensive. Your local public community/technical college has great ROI for a career-related field. In most states, your public university has a great ROI as well. (If you are paying full price, it may be because you are on the "diploma mills" track within a multi-track school)
- zabzonk 5y ago
  > Seriously, how did we arrive to “textbook for a semester are more expensive than tuition is in other counties”? Academic corruption. They get kickbacks from the publishers for forcing these (always crap) textbooks on their students.
  - bernulli 5y ago
    That's not really a thing. Also, wait till you hear how much an academic makes from the articles they publish, and from those lucrative research grants from big-[oil,pharma,etc].
    - zabzonk 5y ago
      > That's not really a thing. Sorry, it is. I've worked in higher education and I've seen it happen. What other explanation do you have for the sales of these ludicrous "textbooks"?
      - jjk166 5y ago
        It's not like there is a cheap alternative that the professors can switch to. All new edition textbooks are expensive. They can't specify out of print editions because then you can't guarantee that your students can get access to them, and the textbook companies update the problems in the books just enough to make using a different edition from the one specified impractical. Some publishers may incentivize using their particular textbook, but there isn't some vast conspiracy to jack up prices. The fact is textbooks are a niche product with a steep demand curve that can be paid for with subsidized loans, of course they're going to be ridiculously overpriced.
        zabzonk 5y ago
        Then don't require (note, require) students to buy textbooks at all - what are these lecturers supposed to be doing? Are there no libraries. Don't outdate them every year to make second hand ones useless. > ridiculously overpriced Well, you admit it yourself. And the books aren't even any good!
unpolloloco 5y ago
The other problem is that prices have no relation to quality. The random private university that will saddle you with $250k in debt and no job prospects costs the same as Harvard, which will both give you more aid and give you a foot in the door pretty much anywhere. But the marketing to kids has been all about finding the right "fit" - not finding the school that will actually land them a job for a reasonable value. And to top that off, career "fit" has been marketed so hard to kids that no one wants to go into specialized trades, which will both almost definitely pay way better and be way more fulfilling than the random inside sales job that they land right out of school

dougmwne 5y ago

I don't think your conclusion is suggested by the statistics in the article. There is a decline in enrollment, but it is heavily focused on men and white men are even slightly behind other ethnicities. This holds true even for very high household incomes where the ROI on a degree is less important than the social prestige of being in a white collar career. If college was a bad deal, you would see women opting out as well.

SuoDuanDao 5y ago
>If college was a bad deal, you would see women opting out as well. Not necessarily. Bad deals are generally taken due to deceptive marketing, something that drove a lot of the college applications over the last two generations. If deceptive marketing is still in play but one group, e.g. American men, is no longer being targeted...
treis 5y ago
A large generalization but in my experience women operate under the assumption that they will marry a partner that has equal or greater earning potential. Men assume that they will have to support their partner. The other part of this is kids and biological reality. Can't imagine doing a trade or physical job while pregnant. Even after birth it took my wife a solid year or more before she was physically back to "normal".
zefool 5y ago
Overall enrollment is down as well. It's mentioned in the article.

rgrieselhuber 5y ago

The marketing on this to Gen X was incredibly effective as well. There was this pervading "common sense" that if you didn't go to college, you weren't going to be able to attract the kind of spouse that you wanted, or that you would somehow be looked down on in the reproductive market. The smart ones figured out that this was actually a handy way to filter out superficial candidates. Fast forward 25 years, and I see many middle-aged men who are dissatisfied with their corporate lives but haven't build any income potential in something other than corporate America, so they are stuck in jobs that are increasingly subject to the pressures of globalism, etc.

sjg007 5y ago
We can’t all be plumbers.. college is worth it. You get access to technology. For computers it was that way until the 90s when you could get access outside of universities. All of the front end JavaScript web apps will be replaced with automation and drag and drop UIs. This will let some people scale but all those code academy kids will need to find new skills.
- rgrieselhuber 5y ago
  Computer Science graduates have done well and will continue to do well, although figuring out a post-40s career strategy is a huge necessity. Other fields, other than the specialties? Many will continue to suffer, IMO.
  - sjg007 5y ago
    Where does this post 40s mean come from? I mean, seriously... it makes no sense.
    - wing-_-nuts 5y ago
      Ageism. Yes, there are 50 year old devs that are on the cutting edge of their field, and still doing well, but by 40 you're looked at with increased skepticism if you haven't made your way into management

ashtonkem 5y ago

> Great news, the concept that you need college to succeed was one of the greatest lies told to my generation. I guess it means what you mean by “succeed”. Going to college is and always has been a reliable way towards earning more money[0]. The issue isn’t that college doesn’t work, the issue is that it’s basically an asset bubble of sorts and the cost exceeded its value. If huge chunks of future generations skip college because it’s unaffordable, that will be bad for us as a society. It would be much better to reduce the cost of college so that it’s more valuable for more people, rather than having younger generations opt out due to the high cost. 0 - Degree dependent, of course. Music degrees have been always poorly valued by the market.

rgrieselhuber 5y ago
Bad for us as a society how?
- racl101 5y ago
  I imagine their point is people forgoing a post secondary education.
  - rgrieselhuber 5y ago
    The conflation of college with education was natural and understandable until the last 10-15 years, but that appears to be changing.
    - Grakel 5y ago
      Well said. Today it's a dating camp that you attend after high school before you settle into the debt economy.
    - racl101 5y ago
      I agree as well. I'm just speculating about OP's point. Now you can get a pretty decent education from watching lots of videos and an education that commensurate with one that you'd plunk down thousands of dollars for at a university or college. Especially in the era of COVID where they would have you watch videos anyways during a period of lockdown. So glad I'm not a student right now. I'd feel so ripped off.

twoslide 5y ago

Is the issue higher education (colleges/universities) or higher education finance? Sounds like the latter.

whywhywhywhy 5y ago
The two are linked inseparably. To have higher education without the astronomical loans that hold the current system up you'd need an entirely new system.

pc86 5y ago

35, renting and another 12k left here. I am in the (relatively) lucky position that my loans are only about 6% interest so it's not quite an emergency for me to pay them back. Selfishly I stopped making extra payments to see if Biden actually kept his campaign promise of a minimum $10k forgiveness, but of course as soon as he was elected that disappeared. I know classmates of mine (2008) who still have 20, 30, 40k in debt. Even some of the kids who came from a bit of family money still struggled for the better part of their 20's to pay everything back.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

mywittyname 5y ago

You're conflating college with student loans. Not everyone who goes to college comes out with tons, or even any debt. Additionally, federal loans for undergraduate degrees are capped (to ~$35kish right now). It is graduate school where people end up with six-figures of high interest debt, as graduate loans are unlimited. You don't need to go to college to be successful, but the data speaks for itself. College graduates have always, on average, earned more and enjoyed significantly lower unemployment. Even if that weren't the case, the fact that college-level jobs are easier on the body and people can generally do them well for 20+ years longer is a huge benefit. I was raised by two blue collar people and my parents were big on college. My father worked as an electrician and even by the time I was 16, his body was starting to give out. He's basically unable to ply his trade at this point due to several complications related to his career, and works a near-minimum wage office job now. I'm sure he would gladly trade half a years salary when he was 18 to get an additional 20 high-earning working years.