Did anyone force all those students to take student loans?
So "forced"? Not with a gun to their head, but when every authority figure, parent and friend you've ever trusted tells you to do the thing at 17...
Sure, nobody forced them to take out loans, but for me, the propaganda all throughout high school was "If you want a high paying job, you need to go to college!" and then was told not to worry about the costs and student loan payments, the higher paying job will pay for itself.
Four years of every adult you trust. Your parents, teachers, counselors, and other school faculty. The same message. Go to college. Go to college. Go to college. Don't worry about the loans, the higher salary will pay for it. It's an investment. It doesn't even matter what you get a degree in, employers just like to see you had the discipline and sense of responsibility to complete it.
And then we get out of college, and then we find out we've been lied to. We were children and the adults that we were supposed to trust were lying to us. The degree didn't guarantee a job by any means. Worse yet, many jobs require the degree, but then pay $20/hr, while you're trying to pay $700+/month in student loan payments.
And then dickheads like you come in and pour salt on the wounds.
In short, people with an attitude like yours need to get fucked. Children are being lied to by the adults they trust, and then getting blamed for not being able to handle the responsibilities they took on based on the lies.
Yes, these adults gave these teenagers terrible advice. But the fact of the matter is, they can see exactly how much they would have to pay, with a job that they had no guarantee of. Teenagers of the current age have stopped listening to that advice. If you are stuck with the loans now, all you can do is call out mom, pop, and teachers for misleading you, but also yourself for believing them.
I won't convince you because you've got your anecdotes. Though I'd say if a public school counselor, parents and teachers all tell a 17 year old it's "college or bust", it's laughable to argue "ah, those teenagers should have been rational, informed consumers of professional training and eschewed the advice of every trusted adult in their life".
Bro, when did you last look at the cost of college, the 70s?
I went to a community college and then transferred to a state college that was also in my town, so I didn't have to pay absurd dorm expenses. I worked 30-35 hours a week while going to college.
I still came out with ~$45K in loan debt.
And you're proposing even the possibility of a four-digit loan?
> when you have low or zero income.
Have you missed the part where adults are lying to children and telling them that the high salary their degree will earn them will pay for the loan?
>Have you missed the part where adults are lying to children and telling them that the high salary their degree will earn them will pay for the loan?
Lying to teenagers who should, at some point, use their own judgment. You signed a paper for the loans, yes? Were you able to calculate that it would equal 45K or more of debt? How did you, yourself, think that you would manage to climb out of that debt with a job that you did not have, and would only have a chance of getting four years after graduating?
But when it's in the service of the finance industry - bam; all gone!
They’re screwed either way, might as well get 4 years of college out of it.
They make 12-15 dollars an hour. That's 2400 dollars a month. That means at 30% of income (rental maximum in most areas), they can afford $720. (This assumes that they can work 40 hours. Their hours are often variable because they need two jobs - places mostly hire part time to avoid needing to give out health care.)
There are only a handful of apartments in the area that will rent a two bedroom for 1400. (I assume a roommate.) So, considering a moderate cost of living area, you are unlikely to ever make it out of sharing an apartment as nearly every job paying more than $30 an hour in this city requires a bachelor's degree.
Look around your job. How many people don't have a four year degree? It is near impossible to make it up the ladder without one.
Sure, some will be alright. However, looking at statistics, the best way of not falling behind in terms of income is to get a good degree. Because that’s what we are talking about: average wages have been increasing more slowly than inflation for quite a few decades now. So we are talking about a generation falling behind, not a greedy generation.
It’s less and less the case that a degree is the best path forward (depending on the field), but still.
We could reduce student usury by demanding that all loans be paid back at a maximum percentage of income for a set number of years. If the degree isn't worth 5% of expected job salary for 15 years, too bad. Obviously the numbers can be adjusted but the whole sale pitch is "spend $X, get a leg up on the pile and make twice $x yearly". Just codify that, and suddenly the loan companies are on the hook for $500k loans for basketweaving degrees that produce baristas.
and then act surprised when they get out with zero useful skills
Children were told "you can be anything you want to be" and also "in order to get a good job you have to go to college" which, in effect, forced children who otherwise didn't need to go to college, to go to college.
In the same way a child cannot consent to sex, a child cannot fight social pressure coming from every institution they have access to. Your insistence on the word force is manipulative, pointless, and in bad faith.
It's like birthing an animal in captivity and setting up a snare trap outside the only exit to their cage and then claiming you are hunting when they step on it. Truly disgusting.
The younger generations certainly seem capable of that reasoning. They aren't taking on nearly as many student loans.
Except this was exactly what was offered. Schools used to brag about placement rates. This message came from your parents, the staff at your school, etc.
Setting up, I repeat, a literal trap for children to fall into, and then getting on this stupid high horse about how you didn't fall for it. I cannot begin to express how depraved that concept is, and I know you can't begin to comprehend it. Maybe one day you will.
> The younger generations certainly seem capable of that reasoning. They aren't taking on nearly as many student loans.
That is because they have the mistakes of 2 previous generations as an example and the rhetoric has died down dramatically.
Grow up.