Students often need to decide during undergrad to apply to grad school and at that point many are 19 or 20 years old. Not teenagers is a little pedantic.

Applying to grad school is not making a commitment. One still has two more years. At any time while in grad school, one can google starting salaries, and stop digging in deeper if the math doesn't work.

I wouldn’t underestimate the feeling of the sunken cost (especially after studying and taking the GRE, writing essays, getting recommendations from professors). For someone relatively young who isn’t aware of alternatives nor has prepared for alternatives, it’s not surprising they would keep going down the path feeling they have no better choice at that point, only a choice to imagine their future selves will work even harder to “make it”.

> especially after studying and taking the GRE, writing essays, getting recommendations from professors

Sorry, I have to laugh at the idea that taking the GRE, writing an essay, and getting recommendations is so onerous one feels compelled to take on $300,000 in debt due to the sunk cost fallacy.

It's still their choice, and therefore their responsibility. It's not society's responsibility to make up for their sunk cost fallacy.

Besides, one can always change majors or transfer to another school with better prospects. Lots of students do that.

P.S. Studying for the GREs is what one did the previous 4 years getting a Bachelor's. Nobody I knew studied for the GRE. You should know that stuff by then. The GREs I took didn't go past sophomore material.

That doesn't change the fact that we push people to go to college. We tell people anything is possible in America. We say this is the land of opportunity and you can do whatever we want and to follow your dreams. Then, we charge people a hundred thousand dollars to follow their dream and tell them that dreams are stupid and they should have been practical and googled salaries and career expectations.

America is still designed for when a college degree was payable with a minimum wage job. We either need to fix our schools or acknowledge the American dream is dead and we tricked a generation into giving us money for something they could never have.

The problem with your argument is the assumption that societies are designed.

The assumption that there's any kind of tidy line from a major to a career is a problem, and is hard to shake. I had good enough advice to know to look out for it, and I still got bitten by a situation where solid grades in a viable major were worth little without an in-field internship.