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> I don't understand why anyone's reaction would be to cry

> I have a house in the Bay Area

> I look at my life and I'm satisfied

That's why you don't understand. People in HN are quite privileged. May see others having existential crisis and wonder what is wrong with others.

Dude, you literally took his words out of context to disagree. Both of you are making the same point.

I don't understand why anyone's reaction would be to cry

Things worked out for you and your social circle; not necessarily true for others in your generational cohort.

I'm more inclined to think the crying because you saw yourself young is hyperbole to encourage downloads of TikTok for older consumers. Once they taste the feed, some of them will stay.

>are saddles with 6 figure student debt ... and are lonely.

While I sympathize with the plights of younger generations, student debt and (mis)use of communication tools are not one of them.

Unlike wider problems such as cost of living/housing and geopolitics, student debt and communications are two things completely within your domain of control. You choose to take on debt in the six digits, you choose to use communication tools the way you do.

If you don't want crippling debt, don't take out that loan; college isn't the end-all-be-all in life. If the likes of Facebook/Twitter and Discord are making you miserable, just don't use them or change how you use them; life doesn't revolve around social media.

Hell, even buying a house is still within the realm of sensiblity if you look beyond the metropolitan areas.

There's more to life than permanently connected city life stemming from a college degree.

Yes, and if you are worried about lead fuel in additives just live in the woods. No one said you have to live in a city…

Not to live in the manner that is normalized for you takes extraordinary strength and is not a reasonable expectation. It’s possible, but let’s not pretend it’s a free choice or dismiss the power of the dominant narratives.

> If you don't want crippling debt, don't take out that loan;

Easy to say as a full grown adult, not so much for the 18 year old whose parents would flip a table if they decided to not go to college.

There’s a lot of options between 6 figure loans and not going to college.

My parents excommunicated me for not going down the path they laid out for me which included college. Whatever.

Instead I moved out at 17, ended up homeless, kept going, started a few companies, got a few tech jobs, started another company, and ended up more financially successful than anyone in my extended family without crippling college debt.

Let parents flip tables. Only go to college if employers in your ideal profession strictly requires college, and only if you have a scholarship or the means to pay for it without debt.

> Let parents flip tables. Only go to college if employers in your ideal profession strictly requires college, and only if you have a scholarship or the means to pay for it without debt.

I absolutely agree, with the caveat that somehow young people need to be prepped to have this attitude. Everything society stands for right now communicates the exact opposite values.

Check your stats: how many young homeless ended up successful in life.

>>> Instead I moved out at 17, ended up homeless

I hope you realize how bad of advice this is considering most people who start this path end at homeless and never move past it.

How do you pay for a house without the salary that comes from a white collar job that demands a college diploma?

There's something really ironic here about the anti-college crusade, the lastest line-in-the-sand drawn by anti-education propagandists. If the complainers knew enough about the benefits of college, they wouldn't knock it.

This is just the usual emotional rant about "Shouldn't have done it if you didn't want X".

Not their fault colleges are charging top-dollar and hedging bets against students looking for a better future. Not their fault the government got into the business of student loans. Not their fault the interest rate doubled in 2013 from 3.4% to 6.8%.

>permanently connected city life stemming from a college degree.

>If you don't want crippling debt, don't take out that loan;

>If the likes of Facebook/Twitter and Discord are making you miserable, just don't use them or change how you use them;

Just projecting a narrow view. There was literally nothing constructive here, and it's identical to every person who didn't go to college's argument we hear ran.

Bachelors degree holders have 3.5x lower poverty rate, and earn on average 22k more than the high school diploma would. https://www.aplu.org/our-work/4-policy-and-advocacy/publicuv...

But we get these unsolicited lectures from often-unqualified people who want to trash College hopes because of anecdotes of failure told to them by trustfund baby propagandists who went to ivy league schools.

> Bachelors degree holders have 3.5x lower poverty rate, and earn on average 22k more than the high school diploma would.

It’s fun how comparisons depend on what you compare. Now compare bachelors degree holders against people who have pursued specialized career training after high school: license electricians, nurses, etc

It’s not like skipping 4+ years of college and its associated debt doom someone to bussing tables. There are other paths that for a responsible individual can be much more lucrative and much more secure than slipping into four years of changing majors, gaining debt, and getting drunk.

University is important and should be universally available. But it shouldn’t be committed to by default.

> and earn on average 22k more than high school diploma would.

Let’s dig into that even a little and see what we get.

For starter they’re talking about on average. Just follow the reference in your article and you get to hear [0]. Look at how wide those range are for the college grads. 25% of college grads don’t earn more than the median (50% of) non-college grad.

If you happen to be one of those 25% college might not look like the slam sunk financial decision. And I’m willing to bet that what percentile you fall into isn’t random, but strongly correlated to major and college.

[0] https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/college-labor-market/ind...

Obtaining a college degree has benefits, some occupations even require them (eg: medical, legal), but ultimately it's a balancing act against the cost of getting that degree and how much you even want that degree.

If you really, really want that college degree because your life goal requires it and you have reasonably reliable plans for paying the costs of tuition, by all means go for it.

What I'm saying is that it's a terrible idea to go to college simply because "that's the norm" or you were compelled. Going to college is expensive, the decision should be throughly thought out.

There is more to life than going to college.

As for communication tools, I reiterate: If certain forms of communication are making you miserable, either change how you use them or just don't use them. Life doesn't revolve around nor require social media, anyone who has had any degree of real life experience can teach you that.

You use tools to enrich your life, if a tool isn't enriching your life then you stop using that tool.

I think there was a study that showed that college paid off only to a very low percentage of highest achievers, if you consider earning years lost, tuition cost and loan interest. And masters paid off to almost no one.

>> If my kids didn't have my wife and I to inherit from

Isn't it a nice feeling when you children impatiently wait for you to kick the bucket)

  > If my kids didn't have my wife and I to inherit from, I have no idea how they would ever be able to afford a house.

I mean, this is a huge country and you're focused on the city with the most overinflated housing market. My guess is they would move almost anywhere else in the country and buy a house just fine.

  > 6 figure student debt

Again, this is a choice (and a bad one at that). Most people aren't dumb enough to saddle themselves with that much debt.

The countryside filled with conservative yokels and low paying jobs? Cities are attractive for a reason.

My brother is a homosexual artsy type and he is now working his ass off to pay the mortgage but there is no way he wants to come back to his home-town.

Is everything that isn't San Fran/Austin/Seattle/LA/NY a rural backwater in your mind?

Do you think other cities would have more open minded and welcoming (of his brother's life choice) population than the ones you listed?

For pete sake y'all vote for Trump...

That's a braindead take. Not only were there hundreds of other cities that didn't vote for Trump, but getting along with people who may have different viewpoints on things is what diversity is all about. What's wrong with diversity?

> My guess is they would move almost anywhere else in the country and buy a house just fine.

So to buy a house just leave your family and friends and the community you grew up in and that has deep personal meaning to you. Is that all?

This is an odd question. Is every child of every wealthy family entitled to buy their own expensive house in the same neighborhood? How exactly would that work in real life?

In this case you’re talking about moving out of state, not a different neighborhood.

No, I specifically said city.

Right, and that won’t cut it in many areas of California.

OK. It still sounds like you're making an argument that people are entitled to own their own home in a specific place just because they have family there, so how would that work in real life?