agree. it annoys me when people say that college is a bad deal. ok. so what is the alternative, and no, installing WordPress templates on Freelancer is not a good one.
Going to a specific college for a specific degree can be a really bad choice, while going to another for a different degree can quickly pay off. What high school graduates need is the ability to make these sorts of judgments.
For starters, they should consider getting two degrees in a 4 year period. Many students take more than 4 years to get a single degree which significantly increases loans while having less job prospects. By aiming at two degrees, a person can choose to learn something that fulfills them while also finding something they are decent at that they can tolerate for making a living if their dream job doesn't materialize.
Second, consider that some degrees are far less valuable unless you go past the undergraduate level, and so they need to take into account the cost of earning a graduate degree to see if it will pay off or not.
Third, consider scholarship offers and out of state/in state tuition costs. The cheapest college is rarely the best, but a university that will require 10k loans a year is likely to be a far better deal than one that requires 50k loans a year.
Fourth, learn to network and build references while in college.
All of these are things high schools could be better teaching their students about that would make what ever college they eventually pick a much better deal.
I think quadrupling the work load of a student is only going to pan out with extremely talented individuals. This sounds entirely too unrealistic to be practical advice.
It will require a few things. For starters, from the first semester the student will need to know what degrees they are aiming for and plan accordingly with their advisers. It will require sacrificing some of the fun of college for a more practical approach. It will require giving up any hope of having no classes on a Friday. That's not about being talented though, but about discipline.
If the student will be taking out possible $100,000 or more and they can't do this, then they need to evaluate what they are about to do. Are they about to risk life long debt for an education or for a college experience? If they don't know if what they are studying is what they want to do, should they really be paying someone to teach them how to do it?
Also, if following their passion is something that is extremely difficult for them to learn, then perhaps college is not the right path for them to follow that passion. There has to be some realism on focusing on what you are good at.
This is all much easier when high schools adequately prepare people for college. I wonder how much of the increasing problems at the college level are a result of high schools providing educations of lowering adequacy.