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> big goals like being an astronaut often begin with flipping burgers down at the Mickey D's And end there, because you can't pay down your debt load with that

• DanielBMarkham 14y ago
  People want to talk about investment bubbles or the national debt, but here's a topic I don't see enough of: by subsidizing investment in college education for everyone without some feedback loop to make sure grads have employable skills, we've created a huge debt burden of people owing college loans for skills the marketplace isn't valuing. And it's just getting worse. And to "fix it", just like the way we fix all these other bad policies like taxes, we'll just tighten the screws on some minority of the population that people will accept. Quite frankly I'm disgusted at the whole thing, and I blame both political parties for it. The young are getting screwed over royally by previous generations who knew economics but failed to apply it in their policy decisions. You can't pay for something for somebody else without a very detailed and tight feedback loop. You'll only end up driving up prices and getting less value. But to your direct point: I can't play the hypothetical game here. It has no end. I'll propose a counter-argument and you'll shoot that down, and on we go ad infinitum. My point was that it is critical to view yourself as adapting to the market, wherever that is, not the other way around. If you sit in your figurative parent's basement waiting for that management job, it's not only bad for you it's also bad for the rest of us. You have to accept your role is adaptation, and the even more bitter truth that you might have spent four years gaining nothing but a bad attitude and a boat load of debt. Blech. Not a good place to start. But for some, that's the reality of where they are. You have to make decisions and baby steps toward adaptation. What those decisions are and what those steps are is going to vary from person to person. ADD: Note that this is the very definition of a startup. Go find something people want and give it to them. Adapt and pivot based on what the market wants, not what you want (or have been trained) to do.
  • luser001 14y ago
    In what ways is a college loan a subsidy? ("by subsidizing investment in college education" ...) Who's doing the subsidizing? Am I missing something?
    • jreeve 14y ago
      The interest on college loans in the US is largely subsidized through the government while students are in college.
    • Anirak 14y ago
      Probably referring to government subsidized loans (Stafford Loans).
    • learc83 14y ago
      They are providing low interest loans for people who wouldn't otherwise qualify. The extra risk that the government takes on (that private banks otherwise wouldn't) is the subsidy. Basically they are making money available that wouldn't be there without government intervention. Not to mention that they are directly subsidizing the interest in many cases.
      • luser001 14y ago
        Who is the "they" here? Unless the govt. is doing it, it doesn't count as subsidy. Also, I thought govt. loans were much smaller in total than private loans. Is that incorrect?
        • gnaritas 14y ago
          The government made student loan debt not dischargable through bankruptcy; that's basically a loan guarantee, hence a subsidy.
          • rprospero 14y ago
            Except the government doesn't guarantee that they'll pay it off; they're just forcing it onto the student. To put it differently, if the government announced that failed startups could not discharge their debt through bankruptcy and that the founders would be held responsible for paying off the debts, would you call this government subsidization of small business?
  • Androsynth 14y ago
    Although I agree with most of what you are saying, I disagree that most grads are capable of using a startup mentality to adapt themselves to the market. In fact I would go as far as saying our public schools and universities actively discourage independent thinking and creativity. When we graduate, we are thrown into a world that we aren't prepared for. We have been prepared to memorize facts and follow routine, now everything is the complete opposite of that? Even assuming I'm wrong and most graduates can adapt to life after graduation, it still takes a while to mentally pivot. Six months is not long in the scheme of things, but when it happens to lots of graduates, articles like this start to pop up; occupy movements start to pop up; etc.
• planetguy 14y ago
  If you actually want to be an astronaut and to pay off your student debt, your best bet is to join the US Navy or the US Air Force, and become a fighter pilot who is also a technical and scientific genius. They will, however, start you off on doing things which are far more demeaning, gruelling and uncomfortable than merely flipping burgers, before you ever get to fly a goddamn fighter jet or a spaceship. Flipping burgers isn't a particularly good pathway to anything, but all the good pathways to anywhere start off just as shite.
  • derleth 14y ago
    You're missing the point by focusing too closely on a specific, unrealistic example. The point is that flipping burgers can't be a path to anywhere because once you graduate college, your debt load is so high that a minimum-wage job can't possibly help you pay it down. Especially if you need to live on that wage, too. Getting a government job (including something in the Navy or Air Force) is a different matter entirely, due to massive amounts of tax money being poured into the military (which implies massive amounts of tax money not being poured into anything else). It is a world unto itself.
  • rprasad 14y ago
    Flipping burgers can be a damn good pathway to an executive position in the fast food industry, as long as you actually put the effort into it. Turnover is high in the fast food industry, so promotions are rapid. College graduates who stick it out are frequently offered full-ride scholarships to business school on the company's dime, with managerial and executive-level positions (in either cases paying >$100,000) afterwards. From a career perspective, starting your career by flipping burgers at McDonalds can yield greater dividends (in the long-term) than being a programmer.
    • marshray 14y ago
      Good to know folks aren't afraid to be contrarians around here. There are a few programmers who have become managers and executives too of course. But yes there are executives who would sooner bring in a graduate of Hamburger U than promote talented technical people.