Are they REALLY telling kids nowadays to go major in whatever interested them? Because when I went to college (nineties), nobody told me to just go major in women's studies or medieval history. They were telling me, "Study medicine or engineering because that's the only way it'll be worth the cost." The "what does a liberal arts major say" joke was very much a thing back then, as I assume it is today, now that job prospects for anyone not in STEM are even bleaker than when I went to school.

I don't think the guy who took out $100K in loans to study literature for 5 years was really doing exactly what they were told to do.

Speaking for myself and the majority of people close to me (late twenties / early thirties, Dutch, mostly middle-class), that's exactly what we were told. Maybe around one in ten people I know went for STEM taking into account 'worth the cost', but it's hard to tell because most of them were pressured by their STEM-parents, so the reasons could've been different ("everything else is pseudo-science", etc.)

People I know slightly older than me are even 'worse' in this regard and seem to have been raised with the 'keep studying as long as you like' and 'follow your passion above all else' model, which I was most definitely not raised with, so the perspective has been changing pretty rapidly.

looking at the friends of my progressively younger brothers, the advice is more as you say: college is still 'the thing to do - if you can', but there is much, much more emphasis on job prospects. Part of the reason for that might be that the Dutch system has become more expensive though.

I'm pretty sure that's no longer the case - at least I hope so.

I wanted to make a change in my life, and build a better future for myself. Everyone I spoke to said that going to college would be a great idea - there was no way the investment would not be worth it. My parents, my coworkers, my friends, and of course the advisors at my school - they all said it would be worth it. Not a single contradiction throughout countless conversations.

So I went to college, at my own expense. I had no money, so I pulled federal loans like so many others. $25k and 1.5 years later, I realize that college isn't teaching me anything I could not have learned for free on YouTube/Google. Angry at the scores of people who deceived me into believing college was a good investment, and angrier at the institution for acting like predators upon my naive desire to succeed, I dropped out. When I spoke with the Dean of my school about how I was not feeling challenged after paying exorbitant fees, she said these exact words: "Well, maybe college just isn't for you."

Needless to say, I now know more about my chosen career field than most average college grads, due to experience. However, years later I'm still $25k in the hole - the only significant debt I've ever incurred in my entire life.

For me, college was a literal waste of $25,000+ and nearly two years of my life. At this point in my life, I'm telling everyone who asks that college is a complete waste of time, money, and energy.

And yet not many people train themselves watching just these videos.

You generally need a highly disciplined lifestyle to get your education through these means.

>>Angry at the scores of people who deceived me into believing college was a good investment, and angrier at the institution for acting like predators upon my naive desire to succeed, I dropped out.

They were most likely talking about your job prospects.

Many things in college have gone from 'learning' to 'getting a degree for a job' a long time ago.

Although not that many go out of their way to train – period. You are already an exceptional case if you are thinking about furthering your education, be it through postsecondary schooling or Youtube videos.

> You generally need a highly disciplined lifestyle to get your education through these means.

More disciplined than than those who do not attain an advanced education at all, but not more than other avenues of gaining the same education.

> Many things in college have gone from 'learning' to 'getting a degree for a job' a long time ago.

The perception has, at least. The outcome hasn't. Job quality has measurably declined with increasing college attainment rates, and incomes have remained stagnant.

Now $250k, that's a lot of debt even for a programmer.

Turns out you can not, at least not in America.

This thread has been eye-opening from the perspective of all these comments who (apparently) had negligible guidance from a group of people (parents) who absolutely need to talk about debt to their kids.

Maybe a silver lining in this topic is a generation of future parents who will have better conversations with their kids around going into debt for their college education.

The culture surrounding education in this country is not rational. It's a soup of optimism, hope, preconception, ignorance, and classism, along with the avarice of those in the educational establishment that prey on the foregoing.

In other words the market effects of guaranteed student loans that permited colleges/universities to charge any tuition fees they want and still have an endless supply of student with the funds to pay. Baby boomers can't imagine graduating with the equivalent of a mortgage payment and the reality of a non existent job market that might put them in a financial position to payoff their student loans much less pursue the American dream (house, car, kids).

Meanwhile culturally we have a media that pushes the narrative of 4% unemployment; that young people don't want to own a car; young people don't want to own a house; and young people don't want to get married and have families. The whole thing highlights US culture from the individual to the collective willing to lie/embellish finances, which prohibits anyone from having honest conversations about guaranteed loans; actually costs of school; lack of jobs; non existent wage increases since the 80's...it's the culture of lying/masking finances and a debt fueled economy that lead to housing collapse and eventually will lead to a collapse in the student loan market.

We talk about personal finance, net worth, investing, saving for retirement and many related topics. I am an engineer by training and a computer scientist by career. My wife has done a lot of accounting most of her life.

Also right now the career prospects in engineering are good.

I work at a university so I see the downside often of student debt and bad major choices.

The best class I took at Babson was a combination biz/engineering course at Olin called Affordable Design and Entrepreneurship. The lead instructor, Ben Linder, is amazing.

Wrote more about the project/experience here if you're interested: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13312978

Olin is a great school (can't beat the price), and every student I've worked with and learned from at Olin has been great. So congrats, you should be very proud of your kid! Definitely making a smart choice.

Edit: added a "Pretty cool"

Pretty cool project. Thanks for sharing.

The major downside to Olin is that it's very small and the humanities offerings are very scarce and not comprehensive at all. Olin has a four class humanities requirement for graduation and you're required to have a "theme" to the classes so that you have a sort of "humanities concentration." Some students don't really think about this until senior year, at which point they panic, take a couple more classes, and submit some sort of hand-wavey statement that tries to tie together all the extremely different classes they took.

I took Russian 101, 102, 201, and 202 over the course of 2 years at Wellesley and it was fantastic. I would highly recommend that she think about, not just her engineering major, but what topic she wants to pursue in the arts or humanities. If you make a decision in your freshman/sophomore year and pursue a specific set of classes it's an amazing opportunity to pick up a new skill/hobby, or expand on an existing one.

I now have an almost unhealthy fear of debt, to the extent that I don't even want to own a home until I can pay cash for it. (Though, to be fair, living in Silicon Valley right now with housing prices swinging $500k for what was a $500k house in a few years that fear may be somewhat healthy).

So now we're living with the consequences and it'll definitely shape how we talk to our kids. We'll lean on them heavily to live at home through college, go to community college for the first two years, and then finish at a state school. The less debt they have out of college the better their choice set.

I was in a meeting yesterday where a professor was lamenting that too many students are majoring in business and not arts and sciences. The interesting thing about that is our biggest alumni donors are business school majors and not A&S. If you can't major in a science, CS or engineering then major in business.

I guess you can't fix stupid.

I am so glad my youngest will be attending an engineering school next fall and will get a mechanical engineering degree with an emphasis in systems.

When I was in school, people had the most contempt for business majors.

The engineering people got respect for the technical difficulty of what they did.

The liberal arts folks got respect for the intellectual pursuit.

When we would look at a business major, all we would see was style with no substance. Almost all their education was geared towards appearances. When my undergrad forced all business undergrads to own laptops, the reason was "No one will take you seriously without one". A business professor told me that when students give presentations, he never listens to the content. His feedback is entirely about appearance (suitable clothes, appropriate voice, sexy presentation, etc).

As far as actual content goes, you could more easily learn it all on your own than you could for, say, software or programming (since that is a concern in this thread somewhere).

The primary utility of the business degree is:

1. Learn to look good.

2. Join a somewhat exclusive club.

I got so much shit from my parents and teachers. Not going to college was unacceptable. You HAD to go, it didn't matter what you majored in or how much it cost. People who go to college get good jobs and join the country club, people who don't wind up in jail or something. I'm not exaggerating, that was the message.

Of course that's just my experience, but for whatever that's worth, OP's experience is definitely consistent with mine.

I think it made sense to the people giving the advice. That was how their lives had worked out. They got degrees, then ended up employed to give high school students career advice. (this is a low-paying job) For some reason it never occurred to them to say "Whatever you do, don't go down the path I went down!!!".

My school counselors were always saying "School is expensive; you need to apply for scholarships!"

And then there was career day, when you quickly figured out some of the realities of work.

Plus the STEM folks always said things like "The US needs more engineers!", "Math + science is important!".

Perhaps because I lived on Florida's Space Coast (east central Florida, the general vicinity of NASA) my experience was different than most?

There was a study a while back concluding that it doesn't matter where you go to college - provided you major in STEM. It's a little more complicated than that (attrition rates, quality of curriculum), but overall, there is some truth to this - if you want to get a good job and keep costs down, majoring in engineering at a reputable state school can be a good way to go.

There is an interesting corollary to this, though - it does matter where you go to college, provided you don't major in STEM. This might explain why "elite" US college students are so allergic to engineering. Why go to Harvard if it doesn't provide you with any advantage. If computer science majors from San Jose state have access to the same jobs, what good does Harvard do you?

If you go to an elite college, you can major in economics and go to business school, or hell, major in international relations and go to law school. Jobs prospects for lawyers aren't generally great, but pay and prospects are very good for people who build a network at an ivy and go to a very elite law school.

So your comment about a slate-mining town may be particularly relevant here. People who perceive college from a low income perspective see no point to majoring in Art History, because their chances of becoming a six figure salaried director or an art or cultural institution are basically zero. For a Harvard grad, however, especially one form an upper middle class family with the right connections, it may be a very achievable possibility.

Similarly, why would. a Harvard grad be a senior CRUD bug fixer for 140k a year when he or she could run a nonprofit or cultural organization for a similar salary?

Perhaps the value of elite colleges isn't so much that they can get you a higher salary, but that they can give you a path to a higher salary in culturally interesting job paths that are closed off to most of the populace. Harvard allows you a crack at that salary without having to be a senior CRUD bug fixer.

As an aside, I think one big thing may be overlooked in the "it doesn't matter where you go if you major in STEM" study, because there's a lot under the hood if you only consider salaries. Just as there is a big difference between being a senior CRUD bug fixer for $140k a year and the "director of the American Heritage Film foundation" for $140k a year, there's also a difference between ostensibly similar titles in tech. It could be that elite tech graduates don't show a big difference in salary between grads from less celebrated schools, but do they end up with more autonomy, fewer deadlines, more interesting and exploratory work? "Machine Learning Specialist for Election Results analysis" for the NYTimes is a very different job from "Manager of Payroll and Benefits Data Migration" for a bigco. I'm not 100% convinced where you go to college plays no role in this.

I got a view of this going to a "reasonably top" (not Harvard or Wharton but close) MBA school. I had lots of classmates I'd describe as "irreversibly rich". Not bad people by any stretch, but just from a different world than I came from. The few of us with blue collar backgrounds kept to ourselves and studied our asses off. Those guys, although they studied too, also socialized and partied quite a bit more. I mean wouldn't you, if your success was a foregone conclusion? If they wanted to, they could[1] go off and direct a non-profit, or run a hedge fund, or take 5 years off to contemplate life and fish. I had to make damn sure I got some kind of job straight away so I could immediately be able to not default on $2000+ loan payments.

1: and by "could" I mean, "have the opportunity to", not "have the ability to". Hell, _I_ could run a hedge fund. Will I ever have the opportunity to? No.

I managed to pay that debt off, and 5 years ago I figured out what I should actually do, went back to school yet again, and again I've spent the last 3 years again paying off the exact average amount of student loan debt in a job that seems to pay about $100k less than what the valley pays.

Just payed off the last of my student debt in one big lump sum on Sunday. I was super aggressive paying off my loans and I'm so very thankful they are done. Now in my mid 30's, used to living like a pauper but entirely debt free, and I can finally start putting my money towards things that matter. I really wish I'd gotten good advice about where I should probably head a decade and a half ago, when I still had savings and a larger support network. I would have only had to go through this once, though I know I'm one of the lucky ones in that I've been able to pay it off at all.

I'm not against student debt in general, schools unfortunately cost money, I just wish the guidance counselors talked about the ROI of particular degrees and pushed the trades and technical colleges harder. My ability to talk about the socioeconomic results of the black plague doesn't enhance my employability. Thankfully I figured out that SQL, Python, and C# does on my own.

There will always be people who give you bad advice. I know it's cliche to beat up on the "everyone gets a trophy" mentality that has grown in dominance, but maybe this is a legitimate beef against it. If kids grow up thinking that there are no winners and losers, how do they learn to discriminate when it comes to important matters like college, degree, and career choices?

I just wish the guidance counselors talked about the ROI of particular degrees

My guidance counselor in the 1980's told me to stay at an in-state school in Louisiana with a recommendation, "Why are you applying to Georgia Tech? That's so far from home." I ignored her. She meant well, but I didn't trust her to tell me what was best for my future.

I think it's great that some folks here either didn't receive that bad advice or ignored it, but the reality is, lots of people have gotten screwed with a lot of debt, by listening to their elders.

And I personally kinda hate that "everyone gets a trophy" mentality, because you know what? It was never us kids who were asking for trophies. It was always the adults coming up with that goofy shit and foisting it on us. And yet, somehow, my generation's the one accused of being a snowflake generation...

As some sibling comments noted, this lackadaisical attitude of ignoring the ROI wasn't really true even 50 years ago.

The meme "underwater basket weaving" as a synonym for "unmarketable degree" has been around since the 1960s.[1] Undoubtedly, the GenX, GenY, & Millenials going to college in 1990s & 2000s would have heard of it or similar memes. I believe I first heard of it from a monologue by comedian Jay Leno. (The "uwb" was originally a meme about a specific class but its meaning expanded to entire unmarketable degrees -- which is how mainstream press like NYT used it.[2])

It doesn't mean that "literature" or "women's studies" are unworthy academic subjects. If you're a trust fund baby, you can study whatever you want with no financial repercussions. (The whole philosophy about the pure joy of learning for learning's sake, etc.) However, if one takes out $30k+ in debt, the banks and USA government won't forgive your loan just because you got a degree with no market demand. Therefore, the job prospects of "B.A. in Communications" vs "B.A. in Accounting" has to affect the decision.

[1] https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=underwater+bas...

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/23/arts/television/and-there-...

> The thing that irks me about this the most is how it's the people who were doing exactly what they were told that got hurt the most.

The takeaway here is, in part: don't do something just because you're told to. If our generation stops doing what we're told (which seems to be the case), then this will be a small price.

That said, for someone 18 years old without a lot of life experience, when you're being told to go to college, that you need a college degree to succeed by just about everyone, and being bombarded from all sides with that message...might be a little difficult to really think otherwise.

I'm fortunate that I went into a good field and didn't come out with too much debt, but I don't even want to think of what my family would have said if I questioned the need for college my senior year of high school.

Perhaps children shouldn't go to school at all then, seeing as how the mantra of the classroom is sit down, shut up, and do what you're told or else you are likely to be labeled with a mental disorder and drugged with amphetamines.

For example, if the loans weren't backed by Uncle Sam there would be some threshold at which the loan providers would say "OK people studying this aren't getting jobs." Or if the universities that were promising careers had their feet held to the fire somehow before it had to reach ITT Tech billions of dollars.

I've been thinking a lot about a model in which education is extended as credit. If students paid back a percentage of income how would that change colleges? I don't have all of the answers, and bootstrapping that kind of thing is rough, but I'm trying a few experiments along those lines that could be very interesting at scale.

"You're throwing money away renting, buy a house! The value will only go up!"

What I wonder is why we find it acceptable – desirable even – to shield children under the age of 18 from the reality they will face after that age? How did we reach a point where 18 year olds find themselves in your position? Historically, my experience would have been common. I think it is a travesty so many miss out in modern times. Learning about life has proven to not be a suitable replacement for engaging in life, in my opinion.

> With the high cost of college I would argue making mistakes has become much more expensive than it used to be.

I don't know. The biggest cost of college is still, far and away, the time cost. I don't think that is getting any more expensive in the average case. A degree still roughly takes about the same amount of time as it always has. Other associated costs have definitely risen, but are a drop in the bucket compared to the total cost.

From what I hear from my young coworkers they often owe 40k after two years of college. If you realize then that you took the wrong major switching is difficult with that debt load. That is, unless you have a rich dad...

It was once promised that getting a degree would increase your job income by more than that $7,500 (or whatever number fits the situation). But incomes have been stagnant for 40+ years, with no sign of that changing. Without rising incomes, incomes simply aren't rising to compensate for the growing postsecondary educated populace.

But yeah, it's tough; you need to survey multiple sources.

The point being, because we maybe understood money a little better, we made more practical decisions with regards to education. We certainly didn't get useful advice from our parents or school.

With all due respect, that doesn't really make any sense. What about a democracy should keep people from making important decisions?

I think our education of students on the matter needs work, but they should absolutely be making this decision. For a lot of people it's the first really big decision they get to make, and is a good step to taking on the responsibility that comes with adulthood. That coupled with (hopefully) having a part time job through high school puts them in a pretty good position to transition into becoming a responsible citizen. We just need to teach them more about the costs, expected returns, etc. None of it is that complicated, and could be reasonably taught in a high school algebra course. Probably sooner to be honest.

Even if we didn't have government sponsored education straight up, if any of the money involved were dependent upon a student's career success I believe we'd see a very different educational system.

I also think a system like this would help a lot of the social divide; right now it's much more risky for poor people to go to college (or trade school), so many opt out. I'm obviously biased and could be wrong, it's just a problem that's been eating at me for a long time.

The school would seem to have a strong incentive to only accept applicants who they are pretty sure will make a lot of money. The incentive isn't to teach anyone who shows up.

The school would also seem to have a strong incentive to control the life decisions of students after they leave. i.e. they won't want to let students switch careers after they discover they weren't cut out to be whatever they trained for.

Collecting a percentage of income seems like it might be difficult to enforce. People are eventually going to decide they've paid the school enough and want to stop paying. Is the school going to constantly face legal costs trying to recapture it?

Furthermore, legally, can you sign a contract that permanantly grants a percentage of your income? I'm wondering if that would be declared invalid by the courts.

That's true at first, but at a certain point the incremental cost of each additional student gets really low. Consider existing scholarships and financial aid - you can work in a level of "default" or "higher risk" into the student "portfolio".

> The school would have a strong incentive to control the lives of students

That's true

> Collecting a percentage of income might be difficult to enforce

Not sure how it's more difficult to enforce than any other type of debt, other than if income is misreported. (That's easy: require a W2).

> Legslly, can you sign a contract that permanently grants a percentage of your income?

I don't view it as a "permanently" thing. Just x% for the first y years.

They would also have a big incentive to boot you if you had a bad semester or two, like an underperforming stock or race horse.

How does your system address the reduction in capacity that's going to happen once schools start optimizing for highest paid salaries.

Under your system, the first to go will be low paid degrees like women's studies, sociology, etc. and schools are going to optimize for STEM. It's more than probable that they will boost their STEM enrollment to professor/TA capacity, and axe most programs or cut them to make extremely selective.

I guess it's better than having people running in the real world with no skills, massive debt and a useless degree.

What should drive such an important choice? Pleasure? Fashion? Government quotas?

If someone chooses to pursue a hobby beyond that, which is what the parent seems to be referring to, why shouldn't they have full choice of what they want to study and how they want to study it? Especially in a capitalistic democracy.

They are not doing as good as they were expected to and that has consequences. However, the assumption so many people in this discussion take for granted - that young college graduates did overwhelmingly stupid decisions is simply wrong.

No we weren't. I was definitely encouraged to go to college and study something I enjoyed that was marketable. My parents' first concern when I switched away from pre-med to Political Science was "how will you get a job?"

I remember as a young child hearing my parents make a comment about a degree in "underwater basket-weaving" or similar. Getting a degree in a completely non-marketable skill has always negatively impacted your employability and your earning potential.

My parents were like yours. I chose not to go into STEM, and they were extremely worried, especially since the rise of the Internet, web startups, and smartphones were still in its infancy and I was basically studying things that hadn't gone into the mainstream yet. They were supportive but pretty darn skeptical they thought I was just messing around on a computer.

I will say though, I go back and forth on the benefits of University. With the rise of online videos, detailed writeups from people in the field, and scanned copies of textbooks and answers, students who are driven might be able to achieve a high level of education without needing to enroll into a program that costs tens of thousands. I've learned more in a few months of self-training via MIT OpenCourseWare, Coursera, Udacity, Stanford (online materials), Khan Academy vs. one year of studying at my University many years ago. I was even listening to an interview by Ezra Klein with Kara Swisher, who mentioned she wouldn't recommend anyone going to journalism school these days as you can probably get by via practicing things on your own, becoming much b

So I'm sort of in that camp, but on the other hand, her graduating from a University may have helped give her a slight edge in getting even entrance to a first internship/job. Likewise, earning a degree helped me get work visas and gave me access to people who eventually boosted my career and life opportunities.

I chose to go into graduate school in philosophy, but along the way I also decided to not take out any debt, go to a public university, and to work my ass off. Why? Because I knew I couldn't afford debt of I didn't make it, and I knew I'd have to be summa cum laude with killer letters of recommendation to make it.

How did I know all that? It seemed like common sense to me, but I probably did some research and talked to people. And of course my grandmother wanted to know how I was going to make a living.

And I did make it, but I dropped out of the phd program, took out some loans, and got a freaking csci degree that paid the loans off with a signing bonus, because I discovered that I can't stand academia. Go figure.

This was just... Common sense to me. Don't burn money to do something with low returns. Do burn money to get a valuable degree with returns. Above all, think.

At the time, as now, I feel a great deal of contempt (an ugly, evil emotion to be sure) for people who take out massive debt to be molly-coddled at a private liberal arts college with a sticker price approaching MIT and no connection to the real world, or who fund their entire college degree with loans and no work (i worked through both degrees). I try to convert that into compassion or sympathy, but I haven't found success yet.

Software really is eating the world and we need to find a solution or it will eventually lead to revolt as people will have no other option. If someone isn't going to college for something medical or STEM, they shouldn't bother. Go learn a trade or start a small sole proprietor business while you live at home.

My parents flat-out told me I was going in-state or funding the difference myself (and with UVA, VT, and W&M available, that became a no-brainer).

And counselors, while not actively discouraging applications to expensive private/out-of-state schools, did actively encourage scholarship and grant applications.

Then, during college, my dad did repeatedly ask me my plans. And, when I decided I wanted to pursue a career in computer science, offered to pay an extra year of school so I could transfer to the engineering program (CS was part of the engineering school at UVA). I declined - at the time, the dot-com bubble had not burst, and if you could spell C++, you could find a job that paid $50k+ (in 1999 dollars) - and finished my degree in economics (minored in CS).

This information was available to everyone. If you didn't pay attention to it, then that's on you. This isn't a new discovery.

Huh, I went to college 10+ years ago and it was clear to me then that certain degrees meant a good paying job and some were dead ends.

That's a shame if some students were led to believe something else.

The labour market does not change that much in 4-5 years (barring something like the 08-09 financial meltdown). It should be straightforward to check whether a degree is necessary in order to land a decent job - apply to those jobs without a degree and see what they say.

For example I have one friend who was an immigrant. First generation college graduate, parents don't speak English, and his parents take home more working construction than he does. That wasn't what was sold to him, but he bears all of the risk and all of the responsibility.

For those that aren't immigrants your most likely source is parents or counselors or advisors, nearly all of which were encouraging the same thing.

Of course, you've also go to contend with the fact that it's culturally acceptable for your parents to toss you out on your ass the day you hit eighteen. So you're faced with the prospect of having to go it your own, at eighteen with no life experience and probably very little savings. There's probably very few jobs in the area, and it would be hard to live off them. Or you can just sign your name on a piece of paper and be whisked away to the mythical land of college. Who knows, you'll probably get to drink with your bros and get laid. Sounds like a great time?

At a certain point this stuff stops being "think for yourself" and is just straight up indoctrination. Maybe you're lucky and your school district has some kind of alternative program for trades, or maybe JROTC and you figure out the military isn't a horrible option. For most? It's not even a consideration, it's college or a life of failure. I can't really blame a lot of folks for not realizing how shit things would be. They were brainwashed.

The fact that so many young people feel the need to go to college to get a career in the first place is a sign that our economy is highly imbalanced right now. People shouldn't need degrees to live a comfortable life, yet here we are, completely thrown off due to an extreme drop in demand for labor.

It's kind of shameful to me that I was 30 years old and getting an engineering degree before I ever encountered the idea that money has a time value, hence interest.

The cynical side of me tells me the system is made this way so the rich stay rich. Seeing the direction this country is going in isn't doing anything to change that idea for me.

I think the reality is more likely that people working in schools are public employees, they tend to be apathetic or hostile towards capitalism, and not terribly interested in boring business stuff. These are the people who set the curriculum.

It seems like at this point at lot of the education we feel is necessary exists simply, and perhaps ironically, to make up for the lack of that exposure one has to reality because of the heavy focus on formal education through one's formative years. I would even suggest that we've created a situation where the more formal education one receives, even more formal education is required to make up for what what education was lost in the process.

I also think we've drifted towards thinking that all education takes place in a school. Things like parental mentorship, working a job while in school, extracurricular reading or building things for fun are falling a bit by the wayside. Education is (or should be) a lot more than attending lectures in a classroom, even at the middle school and high school levels.

My GF is a school counselor, and one of her constant sources of frustration is how much stuff is getting pushed onto schools to do which really isn't in their provenance.

That is largely high school math + common sense.

They actually do teach a lot of life skills at school. One just needs to pay attention.

The true reason why people take personal finance later in life is because they burn their hands, and learn the lessons the hard way through some failure.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1411647...

I also chose a path back then (working in television) that has nothing to do with what I ultimately developed an interest in (software design/dev) later into college (when changing majors would have racked up even more debt).

18 year olds don't lack intelligence, they (in general) lack impulse control and the practical ability to effectively weigh consequences of concrete decisions (evaluating them in the abstract is not a problem.) This ability generally isn't fully fenced until the mid-20s.

And if they could attend college 100 years ago, it was worth the investment.

He turned out OK with that parenting, even elected president. Modern social services would have put him in a foster home.

One aspect that supports useless degree seekers is that it's not about "today's" job market, its about having the degree forever to give an advantage in any job market

Oops!

The first thing the mob will do is come for the intelligentsia so no use telling people that their parents were wrong or that they were gullible

So you pay the piper. The supply of gov credit sets the price of courses. Hand over your labour.

I'm a fan of what Mike Rowe is doing to raise awareness around the trades. http://profoundlydisconnected.com/foundation/

So I got lucky, but there's definitely an attitude that needs to be battled.

Taking huge loans to study things like literature was either considered a extreme luxury of the rich who wanted a degree just for the heck of it, or those people going to such sciences(Even commerce, accounting etc) are largely considered people who can't do tough things in life(a.k.a losers).

Most people who study things like literature eventually have to go on and get another degree on top of it. Like say an MBA just to get a job.

Never understood why people take huge loans to study non-STEM degrees.

As a follow-up question to your last sentence, do you have any thoughts on collateralization? Not so easy when the asset grown to pay back the debt is social/intellectual capital, but I think we could come up with creative solutions for certain degrees and borrower profiles.

A lot of people still believe that BS. I know people pushing their kids so hard and paying hundreds of thousands of dollars on education bills over a 4 year college. And, for what?