In the economy of the 70s you could walk into a business with a high school diploma, ask for a job, and get offered enough pay relative to housing costs to save for a home.

Now you have to spend 4 years studying and go into debt to have a chance at that life. But aside from having a cash flow problem, you can't get caught doing anything a college admissions counselor or job recruiter doesn't like or the plan will fall apart. So don't break any laws, get filmed doing anything unsavory (and everyone has a recording device in their pocket), and expect to have gray hair before you get your feet under you financially--if that day ever comes.

Now regardless of who you blame for this economy (though I suggest you look at the age of the people in charge), it's striking how the only decent social safety nets in the US are for retirees. Baby boomers can get government healthcare, social security, along with more benefits/tax breaks at the state and local level. The young have to pay for their own educations, pay for their own healthcare, and then get taxed to pay for the older generations too.

One generation hollowed out the economy, voted to give benefits to themselves while cutting them for everyone else, and ran up debt at every level of government in the process. Now no one else can afford to live the life they did.