Maybe we should advocate for some personal responsibility as well. Institutions may have offered dead end programs, banks may have financed it, but many individuals took out these loans quite thoughtlessly.
Sorry, I don't play with devil's advocates.
If this is your actual view, then just admit it, and don't pretend to hide behind an imaginary devil.
Are you expecting me to explain the field of political science to you in a Hacker News comment?
gets popcorn
But, like, sincerely, first they read some Plato/Aristotle/Machiavelli/etc, second learn about mercantilism's failures, third about modern coopetition in light of the multigenerational UN stalemates, fourth about the Laffer curve, and then what do they do and produce? Specially, someone with a terminal BA in Political Science without an MBA or law school or connections? I am totally ignorant here.
(2-3 well-crafted sentences is all that most compelling ideas really need. Plenty of space in an HN comment. It's not Twitter.)
Poli Sci is - perhaps not surprisingly - a lot like law where there are pretty good jobs you can get that the degree prepares you decently well for even at the undergrad level. The problem is there are 10 applicants for every one of those jobs, so they come with long hours and subsistence wages. It is objectively a "dumb" thing to do to bank that you'll be one of the minority who gets a job and you'll survive the grind long enough to make a decent living.
So there can be systemic issues where we make it way too easy for people who don't really care about politics, or gender, or contemporary French literature, to get a degree in that which is by almost all definitions a worthless piece of paper. And there can also be lack of personal responsibility on the part of that person when they've graduated a decade prior, have never gotten a job relevant to their degree, and think their debt should be forgiven because it's hard to pay it back.
I don't know about that. I think our electorate could use a lot more political science education. In any case, your statement takes for granted the student loan system. Would the world want for lack of polisci graduates if there were no student loans?
> It's pretty high on the list of "I have no idea what to study but I need a degree" choices, as evidenced by me gravitating toward it after successively eliminating basically everything else
That's just your personal anecdote. My personal ancedote is that I also got a degree in political science, and it was because I was genuinely interested in political science.
> It is objectively a "dumb" thing to do to bank that you'll be one of the minority who gets a job and you'll survive the grind long enough to make a decent living.
I would say objectively "risky" rather than dumb. It does pay off for some. Would you say the "winners" were dumb? Would you say that professional athletes who are now fabulously wealthy are dumb because it's "dumb" to pursue a career where most people fail?
Yes, anyone who compromises their future on the slim chance of winning the lottery is reasonably considered "dumb".
For the most part, athletes don't have to compromise their future, though. Professional sport networks tend to be good to make sure participants have reasonable backup plans and once someone is identified as having likelihood of making "the big leagues" will be supported financially to a smaller degree while they see if they can make the transition. There is an opportunity cost on those who don't make it, to be sure, but not being as well off as you had hoped you'd be isn't the same as crumbling under crushing debt for the rest of your life.
Maybe it is not perfect in every circumstance, but generally there is an effort to protect athlete hopefuls from running their lives exactly to protect those who are "dumb". Colleges, on the other hand, couldn't care less – "Just give me the money!"