I feel like there’s a middle ground? Encourage the child to do well and be honest about the importance of credentials/marketability of jobs without crushing their spirit?

I think the main issue is parents are largely ignorant of what’s important for a new generation - especially when things are undergoing radical technical change.

My fiancée is reading Walden - and there are comical similarities to a modern day van life Silicon Valley programmer. The industrial revolution left parents at the time clueless - something similar is happening again.

There's always the sweet spot, but like almost everything involved with predicting the future you rarely know what that is. So you take an educated guess and do what feels right, and the people you know and the media you consume paint that normal for you. Hopefully you don't have a warped perception, because you won't know under after the damage is done.

While we’re comparing anecdotal evidence, here’s mine:

Have a liberal arts degree from a small liberal arts college (<2000 students), had no problem at all breaking into tech or FAANG tech internships, anecdotally I think it helped me get my foot in the door.

Most of my peers also have degrees in liberal arts, and most of them are living successful and fulfilling lives, both professionally, socially, and even monetarily; some went into tech and finance, many are not.

I think something important to realize is there’s many paths to success — even the same idea of success that many in tech seem to have (financial security) — and someone who is passionate and talented will find one; following a pre-set college curriculum churning out STEM majors is just one way to get there.

> Isn't that how young people end up with liberal arts degrees saddled with debt they have little chance of ever repaying?

Sometimes, but sometimes it’s the direct opposite. People let their lives get consumed with the game of “go to school, get good grades, receive certification of having gone to school and gotten good grades” until they find out there’s nothing left for them at the end of the road.

It’s a shame because there are people who are obsessive nerds about academic subjects. And maybe there are more of them than there is a need for professional, full-time academics, which is sad. But I think there are a lot of people for whom formal education is a cargo cult, and these people crowd out the obsessive nerds.

I feel like most of those young people did liberal arts degrees because their parents pushed them to do university, for the same worries GP cited.

If children just loved reading classics and writing their thoughts on great works and thinkers of the past, I don't think their first thought would be to pay for a degree.