I like to refer to higher education as legacy education. As someone who skipped college and jumped right into the workforce after the dot com boom, I was rentin

I like to refer to higher education as legacy education. As someone who skipped college and jumped right into the workforce after the dot com boom, I was renting an apartment/paying my own bills/managing my own affairs by the time I was 21. I had to figure everything out on my own. I was making 60k/year in a big city maintaining websites and helping the small media company I worked at with IT problems. My comp is in the high 200s/low 300s these days. No formal education. When I talk to college aged family or friend's kids, its completely opposite. They are willing to take on 100k+ loans for a major they know nothing about, their parents manage everything for them (my 21 y/o nephew still gets his prescriptions and doctors appointments managed by his mommy), and they think becoming student 34,000 at some mediocre state school is the path to success. They are young - its not their fault, but we need alternative voices in this discussion. Young people should be taking gap years - go work an odd job away from home, learn to live on your own, rent a place with some friends. If you wanna get drunk often, or expedite your serfdom to a FAANG or Goldman Sachs, go ahead, but it builds little character. I will be encouraging my children to do something memorable - go work for the national park service, work on a fishing boat, work in food/restaurant service in some tourist town, start your own small biz, apprentice under a craftsmen, etc. If you decide you want to go to a corporate rearing center, they aren't going anywhere.