I didnt get 'the college experience'. But I didnt have any college debt, I became a hardened adult that didnt cry when plant people got pissed. I dont complain. If something needs to get done, I do it.

Graduated in 3 years with my chem engineering degree at age 21.

People will always complain about something. "You should pay for a dorm, food, education from top individuals, books, knowledge, all for spending 200 hours in the summer at a clothing store".

I did a factory full time midnight shift job, all year, lived off campus + commuted. Ate at home too.

This comes at the cost of the 'College Experience"

Having to grind insane hours just to get in the game might be workable for the very dedicated and tough, but it's certainly not an optimal experience, and something we should strive to make not necessary.

Most of the kids going to college are not mature enough to do any of the above (come on, these are 17 year olds going 30k into debt for their first year alone.) The 'college experience' today is partying / drinking yourself into a stupor and amassing a ton of debt. No, not everyone, but for most that's reality.

If she goes in at 18 after high school, she can earn a degree in 2.5 years at night in the Air Force. After her first 4 years she can choose to get out, with a degree, zero debt, life and work experience. If she so chooses, she can opt to go to Officer Candidate School (13 weeks in Alabama) and emerge 3 months later effectively doubling her income, all the while not paying for medical, dental, housing. If she marries another officer and they do 20 years to retirement, she will be 39, young enough to start a second career and enjoy her AF retirement, second career retirement, and maybe, if she's blessed, SS. More kids should go military. I did, and I had my college paid for and I pay nothing down for houses, get my closing costs paid, no PMI, get treated a little better because of my veteran status. It's a great gig for kids.

Out of all the 10 or so people I know fairly well who are active duty or former military (Marines, Air Force, and Navy, I don't think I know any Army people unless you count National Guard).

2 have serious PTSD.

1 of those, my neighbor, was just arrested for forging pain med prescriptions--he got hooked after he was seriously wounded in combat.

4 received medical discharges from health issues directly caused by their military service (out of combat). Sure they get monthly payments, but they'd all rather not have the injuries.

All of them have spent considerable time deployed, and most of them have had serious family issues because they were away for so long.

All of their deployments were dangerous. One of my Air Force friends is a jet engine mechanic, but told me that they pulled the Marine guards out of where he was stationed, so they gave him an M16 (or maybe it was an M4, not sure what they were using at the time) and made him do guard duty.

I grew up a military brat, did almost 10 years myself in the Corps. I was in during DS1 and almost no one I know from that "war" has PTSD. I personally know several Marines who sent dozens of people to their graves and they are are normal as anyone else. PTSD depends on the mental strength of the individual. My own grandfather (WWII in Asia) did a 20+ year career, and my dad (grunt in Vietnam) who also did a 20+ year career didn't suffer from PTSD. My dad was a machine gunner in Vietnam. He was involved in horrible circumstances. His unit was once embattled around a US airfield in a protection role against sappers, and every man on patrol was wounded as well as covered in leeches from fighting in the nasty water. He went on dozens of missions and did and saw all manner of stuff. My dad was well adjusted, went on to earn a master's degree in engineering, and was an all around swell guy.

People with PTSD don't have some kind of mental weakness. There's even evidence that many cases of PTSD are the results of undiagnosed brain trauma from IED detonations.

>A young women going into the Air Force

Yeah, for some people it's a good option. It's not a "great gig for kids" though in general--for the hundreds of thousands of people with PTSD and other job related injuries, it wasn't a great gig.

Something can't really simultaneously be described as both requiring tremendous personal sacrifice, and a great gig.

Just because someone doesn't freely offer up that information or says they don't have something, doesn't mean they actually don't have it.

There's about 1.3 million active service members.

There are more than 200 million Americans of military age.

I wouldn't call that a major chunk.

Even if you look at the number of people who've served for any length of time at all, the number is very low. It's not a viable option for a significant portion of the population, because personel numbers are capped.

You've been watching to many American Pie movies. College students are insanely focused because they know how tough the competition is. No one has time to party.

Having to grind to get in the game sounds like real life. An education that does not prepare you for real life is of questionable value.

Ok, but you should do that on your own dime, not someone else's. And when you end up with student debt, you shouldn't complain because you go to "ponder, explore and be curious".

Also, cheers from another Michigander - I went to Western.

And he complains about his grandkids needing to go into debt. They don't realize how the world's changed in the last 50 years...

All of this will have been achieved with zero debt and no financial assistance from parents.

Each child is expected to put in 1200+ hours of employment per year of school. This grosses them $12K+ of salary even as freshmen. They choose schools that cost < $6000/year to attend. They pick up some scholarship money to help when they can. They live in cheap apartments with lots of roommates, and they cook their own food.

University of Chicago tuition costs >$50K/year. [0] UofI-Chicago runs ~$17K. [1] Prairie State College in Chicago costs < $5K/year[2]

Here's your first college test: Which one offers a better value?

If you can't afford food, rent, and tuition for $15K/year, you're not looking hard enough. If you think you should spend $75K/year right out of high school... college may not be a good idea for you.

This is not so different from my experience decades ago. I used to opt out of traveling home for Thanksgiving because I could work double shifts during the holiday. Every hour over 1200 helped to pad things.

I recently recommended to a high school student that they enter an essay contest worth $1000. I thought they could win. They thought it was too much effort. They might burn up 4 hours! A loan application only takes 30 minutes.

[0] https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/cost-aid [1] https://admissions.uic.edu/undergraduate/tuition-financial-a... [2] http://prairiestate.edu/apply-reg-pay/tuition-and-fees/index...

My general rule of thumb is that if it takes more than 4 clicks to discover the tuition costs of a school, they are embarrassed. If they are embarrassed it means that even they can't justify the value proposition.

With some digging I see that Harvard claims [1] annual tuition > $50k. Before they tell you that, they promise you a $67K scholarship.

Given those numbers, you can actually make money if you can live for less than $17K/year after tuition. So, yeah, it might really pay off.

Oh, Harvard is also very clear that after you graduate you owe them a lifelong contribution. There is no question that they are expecting 7 figures back. But it seems reasonable that they get you the clerkship or whatever first that puts you in a position to pay back that kind of money.

[0] https://college.harvard.edu/admissions [1] https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculat...

I put myself through a state CS program in the '90s by bartending and selling pot, while guiding whitewater trips (and selling pot) in the summer.

Things have changed, but not that much.

Not everything can be reached through HN, it's an echo chamber of similar minded people

I knew a guy in college, at UCSD, who was trying to take a full CS load while working at Nordstrom. This was in the 90s, so rent, tuition, and costs weren't as high around UCSD as they are now, but making enough to cover rent alone can be a challenge. He was trying to take calc, physics, datas structures and algorithms, and humanities.

Data structures had a pretty tough teacher that semester. I didn't have to work, and I was putting in 20 hours a week at it, to get a B+. That's not a lot for this course, either.

He dropped it. You did ChemE while working, so I bet you could have handled the CS course load at UCSD while working. But I just can't see this as a viable path for most people. In short, I agree that there are extraordinary people who can handle it, but it's not something we can reasonably expect. You can major in communications this way, but CS will lose a lot of talent.

Memories like this, and others, are why I get so angry at times when I hear billionaire CEOs talking about the shortage of engineers in the US. We have talented people here, smart and eager to work hard, failing because they are underfunded. The massive wealth of these CEOs exists only because they can access a highly educated workforce in a safe, stable, peaceful, business friendly democracy.

If they're going to talk about how this environment is failing them, they aren't doing enough. Seriously. It's appalling that talented people who had the grades and test scores to study CS at public (elite) institutions in Facebook's own backyard are failing out of CS because they can't pay the rent and balance the part time job with the demands of a very rigorous curriculum, while billionaire CEOs talk about how the government is failing to produce or give them access to enough engineers.

Especially when other western nations show us that university can be free and people can have a rich college experience without that kind of death march.

I also dont think college was great to meet people. I had some friends, but none that turned out to be ambitious like me.

This is point-blank wrong, unless you're only talking about elite private schools. Most state schools cost around 1-1.5 years of full-time salary, discounting room and board since you have to pay for somewhere to live independently of if you attend university. If your goal is to simply get a degree, you can do it for less than $50k (which is definitely still off compared to the 70s, I agree).

In return, you go to school, which one hopes is worth the cost over the course of the rest of your life, however you measure it (but here, mostly in currency). Which brings us back to this discussion.

However, to include college time in the opportunity cost, it would need to be 'for all', not 'there exists'.

Source: myself and literally every single college person I know who attended public universities in the Midwest

But to have almost zero debt is worth it. More people should consider it.