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> What if you aren't interested (or just not good) at things that are in demand like engineering, computer science, or accounting? Does that mean you don't go?

Not for those majors. And there are plenty of good jobs outside an office environment.

Part of the problem is we curtail students' search functions very early on. That inhibits edge case students from finding edge case jobs. That, in turn, reduces the dynamism of our entire economy.

I agree that society should provide more tools to help students discover something they (a) enjoy, (b) are competitive at and (c) is in demand. But the ultimate responsibility is, and should always remain, the student's.

> we as a society need to ... give them a path forward in life

that's what degrees like science/engineering is. It's a path forward. The trades are also one, but less "comfortable". What else could've society done?

Personally, I think we need to make sure that college does not force you into debt for decades. The rise in tuition over the last 30 years is completely nuts. I think we also need to reevaluate what we really need from people graduating. I think there needs to be a serious discussion around how badly you need a STEM degree for some jobs. Do you need a CS degrees to test an application, probably not.

This leads me to another problem, because everyone wants to get a degree in a STEM field for a better job, the pool is diluted. I've met several people with degrees in CS where I seriously question if they actually ever attended class. (Actually from what I've seen the profitable jobs are really just in TE, science and math in undergrad seems to be little better than an English degree as far as decent job prospects.)

Provided a safety net? Collectively decided that education shouldn't be a gamble, and that the way we classify degrees as more or less useful is flawed? Funded more rigorous public education? Reduce the portion of labor value shaved off by executives and shareholders so that workers can live comfortably off of their labor without government assistance? As of now, society is doing practically nothing. Don't act like there's nothing more we can do.

There's something seriously concerning about having the only path forward be science/engineering and trades. That's essentially limiting the liberal arts to only the rich and the delusional. If fields such as architecture, literature, photography, film, journalism are populated by people who grew up with wealth, their privilege be reflected in their work. Would a journalist who grew up in a gated community be the best choice to cover and discuss income inequality and gentrification? Would an architect who has only lived in million dollar houses necessarily understand how to design public housing?

The liberal arts fundamentally shape how we view, live and act in the world. If this perspective is purely driven by the rich and the privileged, we risk losing an understanding of how the other half lives.

Of the fields you list, architecture stands out as different in that it seems hard to self study. The rest have already been totally subsumed by amateurs (photography) or are on their deathbeds (journalism). Youtubers are as well known if not more so than professional actors. Most journalists are already filtered down to the upper classes (the ones with jobs anyway).

Being productive in liberal arts, and more broadly, creative endeavors is absolutely attainable without a university degree. The internet has made self study, guidance and distribution open to anyone. It's also decimated many of these fields from a professional perspective.

> That's essentially limiting the liberal arts to only the rich and the delusional.

Fulfilling careers that pay even a semi-decent wage for folks in those majors already kinda are limited to the (relatively, at least) rich. See Graeber's speculation in Bullshit Jobs re: the elevation of the military in certain circles as a reaction to all the doing-good-in-the-world or expressing-oneself while also making-ends-meet jobs being monopolized by those with family connections and/or existing money.

> That's essentially limiting the liberal arts to only the rich and the delusional.

As it always has been except since the 20th century. Lots of writers of the past known as such today had to have patrons, be well-situated in society and commerce, or just be rich as hell. The period where a writer could be a published writer and make a living just by means of achievement was incredibly short.

There are many extremely successful people with 'useless degrees', like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Livingston, but she had a metric ton of social capital which the middle class simply does not have.

The middle class ever had only limited opportunities, and since the middle class is shrinking, that's indicative of the opportunities getting boarded up.

> The liberal arts fundamentally shape how we view, live and act in the world

Thinking many years hard about engineering topics does the same. Plus, engineers do not not philosophize.

i would say that 90% of people do not have the talent for science/engineering that is necessary to succeed. and even if they did, that would just dilute the wages of those fields and make jobs harder to come by because there would be too many jobseekers and not enough jobs.

Thanks for the thoughtful comment.

> People going into extreme debt for a shot at an OK life is a massive problem, and personally, I don't think its fair to just say "well you should have thought about that before." I agree, they do need to take some responsibility to think things through, but at the same point, we as a society need to leverage their intelligence and work ethic, and give them a path forward in life. We don't do that now for the majority of cases.

But as you said, society _is_ giving them an opportunity to productively leverage their intelligence and work ethic, and your hypothetical person's answer is "but I don't wanna".

I'm of the opinion (and have been for far longer than it's been so en vogue) that society is rich enough that we should be providing a robust resource floor like a UBI: having the resources to live with dignity shouldn't be contingent on one's economic productivity. But I scratch my head over claims like this that we should be contorting the economy to provide not just a resource floor, not just make-work, but _stimulating_ make-work in whatever field they desire, ignoring any question of whether the work provides value to society.

Note that I'm not suggesting that the market is a perfect oracle for determining value to society. But govt action in these cases boils down to a principled expansion of the set of fields we consider to provide value to society, which has the effect of eg allowing people to apply their intelligence and work ethic to eg the arts. This is orthogonal to your general claim that we should be providing this path for whatever field people want.

You make it sound like all possible paths suck. To an individual decision maker, just do whichever path sucks the least. If college is getting less and less likely to be a path to prosperity, I wouldn't be too upset. College is already saturated, and to the degree it is oversaturated it is largely oriented around signalling value more than actually delivering value. The less people that go, the better.

One alternative might be community college for the first two years, to cut down the cost.

Nice in theory, but maybe not as nice in practice. They tell you "do the first 2 years at the CC, then do the last 2 years at the University".

What actually seems to happen is: "Spend at least 3 years making your way through CC, then somehow still take another 4 years to finish at the University."

Students who can actually manage to complete the 2+2 may be better off just doing the 4 at the University. (And might actually do it in less, due to AP credits and other things.)

> What actually seems to happen is: "Spend at least 3 years making your way through CC, then somehow still take another 4 years to finish at the University."

Any source on this? Because going to CC and then moving on to University in 4 years total is exactly what my sister, and grad school advisor did. His path was particularly good, going CC -> State University -> Ivy League PhD.

If you're going that path, you have to be careful. Double and triple check that your target University is going to accept the credits you think they're going to accept, at the values you think they're going to accept them. Preferably ask them directly, by specific course, and getting it in writing might not be out of line.

I've personally known people to pull off the 2+2 as well, but I've also personally known people who basically had the University look at their two years at CC, pat them on the head, and told them they get basically no credits because they didn't accept the level of courses involved.

It's actually really nice here in Indiana. Two major state schools partnered with the community college Ivy Tech. You can transfer your first 2 years worth of credits to the state college and get a degree from one of those 2 institutions. It works out well from what I've seen. That way too, if after 2 years you decide it's not for you, you're not in as much debt and still have an AS degree.

Agreed, don't pick any random CC. Pick your final university and then find CCs that have agreements on transfer credits. I did 1.5 years at a CC in the same city as the university and on the sign up sheet for classes they would star the classes that could transfer and I had a list of classes I could take that would directly meet requirements for my future major at the university.

Though it does suck to skip out on the experience of being a freshman in a major university without the crutch of returning to mommy's house every night. Nice to be thrown into the deep end.

The crazy costs of university have made us look at university through the lens of job training, but there's a lot more to university than that. It just not worth it when you're going to be $100k in debt.

Yea, five years ago these conversations used to have a lot of "University is about being a well-rounded human", and my response would be "I'm a a bigger believer in that than most, but ask yourself whether playacting some aristocratic fledgling is worth 100-200k".

It seems like as the situation has become more universal and more central to the national conversation, the pendulum has again flipped, and I rarely see people mention the benefits of university beyond job training.

The figure "Major Decisions" from this very article bolsters your point. The trades have some of the lowest satisfaction ratings.

Look, in a capitalist society, which the US is a prime example of, money flows towards those whose skills are contemporaneously scarce and in high demand by businesses. There is no right or wrong here; this is just the physics, if you will, of a society that idealizes capitalism. Complaining about this is just like yelling at gravity for making skin hang down.

Someone who isn't interested in any field that clearly pays high salaries is going to be stuck doing work that does not pay a high salary. If this isn't basic logic, I don't know what is. The fundamental mistake that such people make is going to college to begin with: their chances of securing gainful employment aren't great, but the chance of landing in significant debt is almost 100%. I don't see how anyone can consider this a good deal.

Is this "right", in a purely ethical sense? Probably not. I'm happy to spend all day talking about alternative societal forms where all skills and occupations afford practitioners a good standard of living, but such conversations are moot for as long as we as a society are clinging to capitalism.

P.S.: It's ironic how many of the most vociferous critics of our current economic model are also the prime beneficiaries of its spoils.

P.S.: It's ironic how many of the most vociferous critics of our current economic model are also the prime beneficiaries of its spoils.

And indeed, how some of the people being systematically screwed over by it are so supportive of it. Relatedly, I recall reading in Michael Lewis' "Fifth Risk" that some rural beneficiaries of USDA loans and grants downplay (or outright hide) the source of the funding that's making significant differences in people's lives (sometimes such basic things as access to water or electricity), because the very people being helped disagree with being helped by the federal government.

On the other hand, if no other farmers are helped with grants, then the price of food would increase and they might not need help from the government. It might not be as illogical for them to not like help from the government while at the same time being helped.

"On the other hand, if no other farmers are helped with grants"

No other farmers? What are you talking about? I'm not talking about farmers. Who's talking about farmers?

The USDA does an awful lot more than giving grants to farmers. An awful lot more. In some cases, rural communities would be without water and electricity without USDA grants. They subsidise school meals for poor children. They help people pay their rent. They are the source of food stamps under SNAP. They help people in rural areas get a mortgage to buy a house. They are so much more than grants to farmers, and they keep it quiet. They are effectively a rolling system of government assistance to some of the poorest and most cut-off communities in the US.

I did not know that. I figured that the USDA only dealt with agriculture.

Now look up all the things the Dept of Energy does. They, too, do an awful lot more good work than is commonly thought!

I thought the main job of the DoE was to secure nukes. I suppose that is a pretty good thing.

Why is capitalism a goal in such a way to be detrimental to society? Why is it ok to idolise capitalism, to the point where it is the most important drive of a whole society? Where does it state that because of capitalism you need to have a complete free market where market forces drive every single aspect of life?

It's exactly because I'm on the spot of being a prime beneficiary of such system that I believe I can criticise it, I don't deserve the amount of money I earn while other people go hungry, I don't deserve the luxuries I have because I know how to type some stuff on a keyboard and make a machine virtually do some other stuff. And that is the point, the more you have benefitted from this system while trying to understand your own ethics that you realise how fucked up it is... I could definitely shut my eyes and blindly follow that capitalism is the rule and it's amoral and because of that any criticism should be deflected to "but capitalism is like that".

Yeah, I would prefer to live in a society where capitalism has passed this ugly phase and has been tamed to be as beneficial as possible to most people, not enable a system that left unattended or unbounded will eat everything in its way.