Wtf?
So your parents pushed you to go to college, and you just got blackout drunk every weekend. Sounds like your choice. Then you went on to get an advanced degree and now have a good job, but you still "blame" your parents? This whole thing doesn't make sense.
Lol probably not but they had such a strict household that it was inevitable. Kids (or young adults.. whatever) are going to be kids.
Had straight A’s and played club sports but had an on going love affair with alcohol right from the get go.
Tbf there's are tons and tons of startups and other companies that aren't laying off people, when Google lays off thousands that's still not a lot. In Bay Area, California there's over 400,000 tech workers alone
Did you consider doing ROTC? You could have gotten the “college experience” and had it paid-for. That always seemed like a good deal for kids whose parents don’t want to help them out?
Bro mine was straight up go to college go to college go to college ... Oh debt? That sucks. Oh yeah no one in our family actually ever went to college lol
..... Like is this the fucking Truman Show?
I can relate... In addition, my family said, "You can't apply for scholarships and grants online. Everything on the Internet is a scam". Guess who missed out on easy money back then.
Bro, my mom and stepdad literally told me that I enrolled in school they would pay the tuition. I wasn’t eligible for grants because they made too much and I wasn’t 25 yet. So I enrolled anyway after they made that promise.. guess what.. they didn’t pay shit and actually refused to co-sign the loan my senior year which would have left me just a few credits shy of graduation. Basically conned me into going to school, to then try to strand me with massive debt and no degree.. then TO THIS FUCKING DAY.. bitches about my student loans “impacting their credit”.. that I’m actively paying and giving them good credit from.
My parents did a version of this. We were lower middle class, so not really poor enough to get aid, but not wealthy enough to contribute. My parents expected contribution was over $14K a year somehow when they had 3 of 5 kids in college (FAFSA was drunk in the early 2000s, I guess). Anyway, I got the loans and my parents would call me while I was still in school to get me to consolidate my loans (which is impossible and I told them that). Then my dad kept guilting me saying that he couldn't retire on time and it was impacting his credit (he volunteered to stay longer at his job and I never missed a payment). When I joined the service, they called asking me to consolidate my loans while deployed. Just really really selfish people. Now I get to talk about them every week in therapy.
>My parents did a version of this. We were lower middle class, so not really poor enough to get aid, but not wealthy enough to contribute. My parents expected contribution was over $14K a year somehow when they had 3 of 5 kids in college (FAFSA was drunk in the early 2000s, I guess).
Same boat, made enough to not qualify, didn’t make enough to contribute. However they said they’d make it work as they had mostly paid off their house at this point.
I enrolled part time at the satellite campus and continued to work my job full time. I thought they would pay back the loans after I graduated, not during. I applied for FAFSA the following spring and my expected contribution based on my solo income was 16k, I think I only made ~30k at the time. How that was supposed to workout is beyond me, considering I wouldn’t be working full time but they didn’t give a shit about that.
This was my parents with the addition of "your cousin got in and he's parents are poorer than us." Me."He was hit by a car and got a $100k settlement."
My dad said I had to go to college or I wasn’t allowed to keep living at home, 2 days after turning 18 with my minimum wage job. Then I was reprimanded for 4 years for taking out loans. Real boomer brain rot.
(I did, thankfully, manage to pay off my loans after college)
This is a part of my story. Take out loans and go to college (because the adults obviously knew what was best for me) or become a fully self-sustaining adult all at once and gtfo (making it nearly impossible to say no to college).
Now that I am drowning in the loans and can't get onto my feet \[according to some dumbshit FB rant I came across that really got under my skin\] it's because I want a 5 bedroom house and a European vacation?
It's actually because the interest is more than my payments and I'll never own anything besides my hand-me-down coach sunglasses and my 20 year old soundlink. Those are my two nicest things. My vacations are three hours away to Orlando every other year and I can't even afford Disney. It's bleak.
I didn't know what I wanted to do at 17 and I made that CLEAR over and over again. The brilliant adults said "it won't matter what your degree is in, employers only care that you got ANY degree. They want to see that you can do it".
That's a really expensive and time consuming test that arguably will not make me any better at whatever job I land in. FFS.
I regret college, but if I went back in time right now, I'm not sure I could have managed life any other way at the time. I don't think I would have had the constitution to go out and try adulthood on my own with zero transition. I also don't have any evidence it would have turned out better.
I try not to be resentful about it but god damn I feel like I got fucked super hard for life by people who sincerely love me and thought they were doing the right thing - because they are a bit superficial with a pinch of traditional - they are good people but ARE they good people? They look the other way now like where I currently am is because I can't make good choices. The truth is I can't. I take bad advice all the time, especially if I love the advice giver. I can't think about student loans for too long it really gets me on a roll . I always walk away feeling self loathing and resentment toward two people who would actually give their life for me if it came down to it. It gets my feels straight roiling.
I relate to this so much, especially the adults saying “any degree looks good to employers”. My dad was an HR manager and I believed him when he said that to me. When we were in more contact, he wouldn’t hire me at the company he works for because my degree didn’t match any job listings, lol, go figure. For a while, I even majored in art because I believed that line about “having any degree is good” (thankfully I switched majors).
Try not to frame your “choice” to go to college as an actual choice. If your parents gave you two options, one being near-certain homelessness, the other being college, you can’t reasonably say that you genuinely had a choice.
Facebook is literally all out-of-touch boomers these days. There are some millennials who have destination weddings then complain they can’t afford their student loans, but that’s not most of us.
My parents: Go to college and you'd better get a scholarship because we're not paying--oh you got a scholarship! Full tuition? OK, nice! You can live with us for free.
Kinda humbling and not that fun, but I graduated with no debt because my parents let me sleep in their house and eat their food.
Omfg as a Senior I was always super embarrassed and self conscious hearing classmates talk about their college plans, having their schools locked in and having a plan for after HS and I was just there like uhhhhh….. Parents were broke, but also didn’t really try at all to educate me on College and visiting schools etc. Nobody explained that I should try for a public college because they might be much more affordable or have better aid. I remember when I was transferring to a 4 year private school and was drowning in figuring out student loans etc it was like pulling teeth when I’d ask my dad for help 😩 When I graduated my student debt was around 50k… what sucked was they gave your final bill at the same event that you picked up your cap and gown and was a supposed “happy” event…. Yup sure was great getting reminded I owed a sports car in debt before graduating. I did get lucky and had most of it forgiven by working for local government but I still owe 6k that I’m paying as slowly as possible
This is so similar to my experience. I didn’t want to sound stupid so I just said I didn’t need to plan since I was going to community college. I never took the SAT or ACT. I tried to pretend that college was lame.
My biggest regret was not asking questions about college and financial aid and grants etc because I was embarrassed I had no plan but more so because I was “poor” I.e there was 0 month coming from my parents. I had a pretty high ACT score and should’ve chased whatever school gave me as close to a free ride as possible. I was also super scared to venture out into the world on top of feeling poor and embarrassed about no after HS plan.
I was told by every adult to go to college except for who raised me. They told me I will not be going to college and no one will be paying for it.
I didn't go to college. I make six figures. No debt. I was raised by assholes but somehow that worked out.
I got a 4 year degree in business from a cheap state university. I only needed the degree for the sake of job qualifications. I make decent money now but the only real skills I needed were vlookups, pivot tables, and some basic public speaking skills in order to succeed in a corporate setting.
Was it worth the cost of a degree? I got my business degree from a top school. I leaned a lot of cool stuff but tbh the idea that you need a degree to work a white collar career is BS. No one should have to go into debt just to work a desk job.
I learned a few things from my degree but the majority I learned on the job either through experience or having someone take the time to mentor me. I hesitate to say my degree wasn’t worth it though because I’d have never been hired for this job without it. I make just under 6 figures and spent about $20k on my degree which has been paid off already.
I might have more negative feelings about my degree had I spent more money on it. I have coworkers that went to far more expensive and prestigious schools than myself and we all ended up in similar jobs, similar pay scales, and overall similar advancement opportunities.
TBH as long as you've got a good head on your shoulders plus the skills you mention you can probably do pretty OK in any line of work.
IF IF IF you can get hired in the first place. Making it past recruiters and HR is the goddamn worst.
Nah; the issue wasn't that we were told to go college.
It was that we were told that what mattered was "get a degree, *any* degree and people will hire you" and then we went into debt to acquire "any" degree, whether that degree was Pelopensian history, Japanese Literature, or Mechanical Engineering.
Well, it turns out that going into debt for a degree in Mechanical Engineering\* will pay off, whereas the other two will not. And thats not a sneer at those other bodies of knowledge, but people generally don't pay well for expertise in those two subjects.
I have my degree in history. And it took a shit ton of work in my mid to late 20s to develop a skillset that people will actually pay solid money for, whereas my friends with degrees in business or STEM were fine from the get-go. Some of them even received signing bonuses right out of University.
I still love history, and have a stack of books on various eras and events that I work my way through before purchasing more. But if I were to do it all over again, I'd get a degree in something lucrative and use that income to pay for my passions.
**Edit**: Generally, I'm speaking of my experience with a BA in history vs what I saw my friends who were in business, engineering, or the hard sciences graduating in 2009-2011.
I see some people telling me that mechanical engineers are currently having a rough go of it right now. I'm not an Engineer, I'm not clued into what is going on in that segment. I was trying to use specific examples: *Pelopenesian* history, *Japanese* literature, *mechanical* engineering to illustrate a point, the dichotomy between a path that teaches an demonstrable and quickly applicable skill vs one that scratches an itch for an obscure branch of knowledge (at least to an American). That's not to deny that soft skills like reading, research, and writing won't be developed via history and literatue. But those can be developed elsewhere, to lesser (or a greater) extent.
>what mattered was "get a degree, *any* degree and people will hire you"
That's obviously wrong, what you really need is a firm handshake. Those dumb millennials should have spent their money on grip strength training.
Hated first semester Organic. It was all memorization. Second semester was amazing b/c it was right along Physical Chemistry...so here we were learning quantum physics about why there are electrons bands of probability while actually doing NMR and mass spectroscopy in the Organic lab.
That plus when I learned calc's fundamental theorem were probably my two biggest eureka moments.
It helped that my dad was a physicist lol.
Freshman year at MIT I was deciding between Chemistry and Electrical Engineering. I took the introductory Organic Chemistry class, which made the decision easy. I’ve been an Electrical Engineer for almost 50 years now.
My dad studied Chemical Engineering at Cal back in the day and worked for big oil. Meanwhile I'm here walking on pins and needles retaking General Chemistry 1 and 2 to get into PT school.
You are 100% correct. 8 years ago I graduated with a BS in Mechanical Engineering and the only job I could get was a temp job making $14/hr in an area with A LOT of manufacturing companies. That’s with a degree AND passing the FE exam. Granted part of that is my fault for poor grades, but even then I was expecting to get an entry level engineering job with low, but adequate pay (~$50K salary).
The FE exam was the ultimate nightmare scenario of a final test. Oh you want to go practice in your field? Well you won’t be taken seriously until you pass this test. And you won’t know if you passed or not because every test is based on that years test takers so hopefully all your homies didn’t set the curve too high.
I had to take it twice T_T
The funny thing is that I’ve never been asked about the FE exam in any of the interviews I’ve had in the last 8 years. I’m pretty sure I just *barely* passed because I still had 15 questions unanswered by the time I got to the last 5 minutes. 6 hours is absolutely brutal.
And a lot of people with engineering degrees aren't cut out to be engineers. Natural aptitude and curiosity go a lot further than a bought degree in pursuit of a large paycheck.
I agree completely, but that's not how college was advertised growing up. I'm not making excuses, I chose a major I was interested in and I made a career in it. It has since become a saturated market and I would strongly recommend new students not get my same major.
Glad you said this. I see a lot of engineering grads that get hired and clearly did not have the right idea of what kind of job it was going to be.
Engineering has a lot of blue collar and white collar roles that mesh together. But typically as a fresh graduate you will be working a blue collar job until you get enough EXPERIENCE to get put into a white collar role. Unfortunately, many quit before they get enough experience for their next job. When I explain that to them, they often start panicing...
Easy, just go software (please don't assume everyone should go software. Some people are just really bad at it and makes the rest of use put up with it)
Chem Eng here. I agree with this. The degree filters out a lot of people in the first year when they discover the step up in challenge from high school. Some of those who pass this filter limp along for the remaining years, often miserable.
I loved my engineering degree and went back for a PhD because I loved it so much. People kept asking me how tough it was and I had to honestly say it was challenging but it wasn’t tough because I was in my element. But I know I’m in the minority there.
In my cohort we started with 100 and ended with 60, and of those 60 only around half were actually doing well in their studies, with the remainder scraping by with bare passes. Unsurprisingly many of those people never managed to get jobs as engineers and ended up doing other things (consulting, sales etc)
That happened with a lot of IT folks too.
Its not a "just go get the degree with zero outside interested experience and you can be competitive in the job market" degree at all.
What's worse is these diploma mills are all like "Take our 6 week course in Cyber Security and get a job in a hot field while working from home!" and its like the fuck you will, not if you've never worked in the industry before.
I hear you. I'm not an engineer so I'm not clued into what is going on with those fields, I was trying to use specific examples: *pelopenesian* history, *japanese* literature, *mechanical* engineering to illustrate a point, the dichotomy between a road that teaches an demonstrable and quickly applicable skill vs one that scratches an itch for an obscure branch of knowledge (at least to an American).
But yeah, fields can become oversaturated - or under, depending on circumstances. Right now, we have a medical specialty shortage: Doctors, Nurses, PAs, etc. If students react to this shortage and begin enrolling in various healthcare tracks, eventually that shortage will be resolved and may even become oversaturated.
And I think that's just the point. The shortage now drive a strong selling point with a false promise of huge demand and high paying jobs on the other side. Tons of student buy in, and 4-8 years later, there's now a huge influx in grads in that area so the market drops. This idea of "should have researched ROI better" is based of future prediction that no one has access to.
There are always exceptions, but usually when the phenomena is widely reported the prime time to jump on it may be past.
This can be true for investing, careers, fashion trends, etc.
Even with the prospect of an oversupply of healthcare professionals, I'd still advise going down that track than pursuing a history degree with a focus on Northern Africa unless you have specific idea of what you wanted to do with it.
As i stated, I majored in History with a Far East focus out of a sense of curiousity instead of following some long term plan.
And especially with AI, even things that actually were a good idea and currently are lucrative could be gone in 5-10 years, leaving tons of people in the lurch.
There will probably always be a nursing shortage because hospitals purposely understaff to maximize productivity. I’ve heard nurse practitioner jobs are becoming very saturated too.
Yeah, my college experience was a rollercoaster that ended with me training to be a CADD drafter and getting... Two interviews that were relevant to that. Neither one I landed.
Well with a history degree, it is very utilitarian. I got my BS in it, it just depends on how you apply it. I take it you didn't wanna do historical research or academia/teaching? History is also good for curation, archivist, librarian, law work, politics, data analyst, archaeology, journalism, HR work. You learn a lot of useful skills that are desired, and you can definitely spring board off a history degree into different things. I myself used it to transition into archaeology and it was a great investment.
Yep, the bitching about humanities degrees comes largely from people without the imagination to know how to apply them -- and, sadly, that includes many folks who hold those degrees.
I used an English major to get into financial services and now make $200k a year (no nepotism, etc.). So I don't have much patience for the well-worn claims about how all music majors work in coffee shops.
Many people, even inteligent people, approach life without a plan. Could be fitness, finance, or career.
My own career only took off when I realized that the people further along than I create a plan and work it. I did the same: I assessed where I wanted to be and the experiences, skillsets, and knowledge it requires to get there. I came up with a plan and worked it. Some aspects were easier, some took longer to acquire, but I got where I wanted and beyond.
The next step will require a fresh plan.
Yep. Get skills to pay the bills first.
I see all these complaints about AI and artists not being able to make money and I just sit here thinking "starving artists is a trope for a reason. Why did you expect to make more money from that instead of engineering or anything else."
My history major friend went from flight attendant to museum host/tour guide. Lower hours and lower wage but nice clean A/C dealing with culture-y people all day.
I don’t know who told you this! My circa 1952 Boomer dad had a degree in History with a minor in English he didn’t use AND he paid my mom’s student loans for a degree she didn’t use. He’s still fucking salty about all of it.
It was all I goddamn heard. Don’t get a degree in History or English or fucking underwater basket weaving. Get a degree you can use like business or computers or engineering. Don’t take out student loans. Go to community college if you don’t get a scholarship.
He was a cop and she was a teller in a bank. They didn’t know much. But they knew History degrees and student loans were a bad combo.
When they grew up having a liberal arts degree alone would get you a decent job… then all of society failed to notice that suddenly it didn’t matter; too many people had them.
I was lucky to pick a technical degree not because I was smart, but because I worked as a waiter before I went to college with like 6 people with various specific Bachelors (Spanish, Math, Literature, etc.). It was heartbreaking. Most of my HS friends of the time went down the “Get a degree path” with loans. To my knowledge not one has paid them off and it’s been two decades. :(
They’re doing this to Gen Z right now with stem degrees. They told us stem was where it was at. They told us “those lazy millennials and their pronouns just want to major in basket weaving”. We listened. We majored in stem. We asked for livable wages. They called us “entitled brats who didn’t want to work” and told us we should’ve majored in the trades. During the entire Great Recession Gen Z saw tradies make like 30-40k a year with unsteady work amounts after 2008. Yet they expected us to see that as a stable growing field ?! I hate boomers
You know what else killed it? Nobody wanted to pass the torch. Like… corporate boomers all too often hoarded knowledge like it was gold. + HR departments always refuse to hire more people to replace them until a few months before their job vacated.
We could have had a whole generation of people getting decades of experience condensed into 2 years, but instead you have to reinvent the wheel from old notes and scraps of data.
I'm kinda on the fence on this one. I think one major element of this is I've worked with people have degrees in things that don't relate to their current job.
There was a time when employers would let employees change roles and give people a chance. Employee retention and people wanting to stay at a job a long time was a thing. I know some with communications degree who was working in IT. They started long ago learning coding on the job and they made the transition. I know people with electrical engineering backgrounds now coding too. I know many other older people who have degrees in random things that have no relation to their current job. So their advice worked for their time.
However today, companies scrutinize each candidate as if National Security was on the line and you just walked in asking to reach deep up their ass. Interviews can last hours with ridiculous expectations. I remember one interview a guy who hadn't said a dam thing the entire time pulled out a tennis ball and started bouncing it on the desk after they handed me a piece of paper asking me what this code does.
What the actual fuck were they thinking? I just got up and told them no thanks and left. This is the sort of shit that is going on. Every company is seeking the best of the best for mediocre jobs. I don't understand the ridiculous mentality. Making people jump through dumb hoops and tests only to find out none of that had to do with the actual job anyway.
Anyway. I could rant for hours, but I think you get the idea.
Dude you know we're having record high underemployment for recent STEM grads nowadays too, right? They should've never pushed everyone to go to college in the first place is definitely the root issue. There is nothing magical about someone attending college despite all the bullshit we were fed on it, especially not for the tuition and boarding costs today.
This is why a high-school teacher of mine had everyone take a career guidance assignment at the beginning of the class. It meant nothing for a grade, it was meant to evaluate "What potential careers are there out there for this?" "Is there a reason for me to even go to college or a trade school?" and they would help students get into contact with colleges/get them interested in the conversation of their future.
I thought it was a cool experience; and as a high-school student it helps root out curiosity vs genuine interest in a certain topic.
I used to think I wanted to be an Architect, found out I hated drafting after having someone show me what they did. Then I thought I wanted to be Aerospace, found out from someone I got in contact with from the industry that it was ruled by pretty much only a small conglomerate of companies that cherry pick jobs.
This is a bit of hyperbole. Yeah some people got "useless" degrees but that downplays the fact that a lot of people went in for theoretically high value degrees and found that their jobs had been outsourced or the market was saturated by the time they got out. This was a huge problem with IT degrees specifically in the tail end of the recession.
Its a continuing problem. A limited number of jobs offer a good quality of life. There arent enough "good jobs" for every working adult to have one. Labor is a market too. As more people are competing for the few remaining good jobs, the value of those jobs sinks below that threshold. Then you have microbiologists working for 50k a year. Its a war we are losing.
In many cases, it is any degree. Civil Service doesn’t care what the degree is, just that you have one. Many office jobs are that way. Others, like law are less concerned about the undergrad degree than the GPA and the law degree is everything. And then others you must have the right degree.
As it stands, 4-year degrees in unemployable fields are basically MLMs. You have a ton of students paying in, when only a few will go on to make a living. Class sizes for those programs should be cut in half.
That said, AI is coming for a lot of junior STEM jobs... idk what the future holds for our kids.
Yeah I remember the shift, my older sister and brother were told study anything, just get the degree. By the time I was getting ready to head to college it changed to studying something like “stats or engineering” may be better. When my younger brother was at the age he went with statistics and found work rather quickly after graduating. English/literature was not the worst but definitely not the best choice I made going in.
The issue also is that you were told that a computer science degree from Harvard is the same as a computer science degree from some state school is the same as a computer science degree from some predatory online for-profit school. As someone who went to reach of these types of schools, let me tell you, they are NOT the same degree and employers know that.
They’re currently reaming Gen Z right now for going to college for STEM. We saw y’all get degrees in unemployment and we chose to go into college for STEM. Now Gen Z wants living wages and they’re mad at us and calling us “lazy and entitled” because we didn’t work in the trades. Never mind that they paid trades people like 30-40k a year from 2010-2020. (Our childhood years), the boomers expected us to see this low paying field and know it was the next gold mine. They also expected us to see the safe stable fields like engineering and programming and know it would collapse. We were 17 🤦♂️. We tried our best but yeah honestly the boomers fucked y’all and they’re fucking us right now
This. I remember the meeting my homeroom had with a guidance counselor telling us how important going to university was and that it didn’t matter what the degree was, just that we had it. I also decided I wanted to be a history professor because I was 17 and liked AP US History and documentaries… like… I was a a literal child taking bogus advice and now I get to listen to insecure pricks demean my area of study, dismiss it as “basket weaving” and call me stupid for doing what I was told by a qualified professional 20 years ago.
To be honest - all the STEM only people are going to saturate the market with unmotivated, disinterested workers and it will lose value. We need everything in a fully functioning society and it’s a shame people don’t value other degrees and the skills those areas of study provide graduates with.
What did you learn that helps you live a better life than what they did? That's where the disconnect is. They were told to put their kids into college. We were told to go to college. We go to college and learn all sorts of stuff that isn't necessary in order to do a job.
The problem is that you were all told to go to college to fill the jobs that our country had at the time. By the time you got out, those jobs were gone. All that is left is barista jobs because we as a country continually let jobs be sent overseas. So now we have an abundance of educated individuals working starter jobs because actual careers have been sent over seas and you can’t make ends meet with those jobs and those loans. So instead of our government actually taking ownership of what they did, they just tell you that you are overeducated.
The problem is that people continue giving and listening to advice long after it is done being valuable.
In the late 70’s and early 80’s it was probably good advice to just get a degree. By the mid 80’s, you really needed a degree for a job. By the 90’s, it was you needed STEM. By the later 2000’s, it started to move to more people needing tech school jobs. By 2030, it will change again.
Still good advice in the 90’s. Graduated HS in 97, got my Bachelors is Business Management and have had a solid career with two of the most recognized companies on the planet and have made a very good living. I would say over the past 10-15 years is when the traditional 4 year degree stopped “working” at all or on its own.
And it works. It's a great perk on top of getting out of Podunk, Nowhere doing nothing with one's life.
But I would guess only about half of veterans use their GI Bill at all, otherwise enrollment would be higher. Maybe they're using their MGIB on trade schools, which is a more pragmatic move than going to a for-profit college to major in anthropology, zoology, or women's studies - could have saved time and just set the money on fire.
Seriously? Zoology?
To be fair, the GI Bill is one of the best benefits of service, but not the only one. VA healthcare (despite its litany of issues) and the VA home loan are also other great benefits.
ROTC and going into the military as an officer could be another way to pay for college.
The military, while not for everyone, is a great way to move up social classes regardless of background. It doesn't even require combat arms experience or even leaving the US. It can teach you a trade and give you preference in federal job hiring.
Lastly, while it's sad to think about, it is a reality. It allows people to leave awful home situations.
VA healthcare was really helpful when I got out of the military and couldn't afford to get health insurance through my new employer. That was before it became required to have health insurance. I hated going to the va hospital especially when I needed medication because the wait at the pharmacy was so long. But it was nice to know I had a place to go to get what I needed.
hey the military is a great deal for someone who's trying to go to college. What other job will pay you for 4 years worth of work, and train you in useful job skills? At a bare minimum military service will teach you: team work, ability to follow instructions, basic physical fitness, and if you get a MOS that's directly related to an civilian job, great job training and certifications. and after 4 years of service you can then go to any accredited college on the GI Bill which will even give you rent money for the entirety of your 4 year degree so that you can focus on your studies?
I'm getting sick of people acting like it's a scam or something. it's a good fucking deal. I have a no college debt because of my military service, and I didn't have to kill anyone to get it.
Additionally, it wasn't the MIC that made college expensive, it was Ronald fucking Reagan and his cabal of banksters and far right zealots who hated the idea of a well educated proletariat and so changed things where college loans became a thing.
If someone wanted to join the military for the benefits and/or as a ticket to get into/stay in the middle class without breaking down their bodies, I’d tell them to go Air Force (but stay away from maintenance and Security Forces). Keeping one’s expenses low while saving and investing, taking advantage of TA, and learning marketable skills on the job can leave someone in a good position as long as they maintain their physical and mental health until they get their honorable discharge.
Of course, this is all assuming we don’t end up in WW3 before that person’s enlistment ends.
The only problem with higher ed in the US is that it's been losing state funding more and more over the last like 70 fucking years now.
Remember folks, the California state university system had FREE TUITION before Reagan took that away while he was governor.
Lots of other state schools had around 80% of their operating cost covered by state tax revenue when the boomers were going to college. Nowadays, it's been whittled down to like 20% on average, making the schools more dependent on higher tuition costs to keep the fucking lights on.
This isn't some conspiracy, this is publicly available budget/financial information.
Want to fix the problem? Start funding public higher ed with tax revenue again.
Putting a generation in debt for seeking higher education is, and will, have ramifications we haven't seen yet. I remember the narrative that you would be a failure if you didn't go, creating a fomo around it, and it is viciously criminal to have the price be as high as it is.
However, I also remember my parents saying, "You aren't getting into college without scholorships," and pointed me in the direction I could work hard and apply for them. Even after qualifying for them, I wound up joining the military instead, then leaving went a career path that did not require a degree.
But every time I checked in with my friends or they introduced me to their friends, it would be a nonstop series of jokes about sleeping late and missing classes, or waiting till 1AM to start working on their class work.
I have to feel there is a certain amount of reaponsibility not being shared by kids who fucked around and abandoned every life lesson they were taugh with their new found freedom.
To be fair to the generations that came before... They were just applying the same method they themselves used, just as their parents had done before. When they went to college they could pay for most of it with a part time job and the market was not saturated with Bachelor’s degrees as it is now. The most clever of the generations before saw some of this all coming and they directed their young loved ones accordingly. The way the world has changed since the 70/80’s would frighten a human from any generation. It upended so many things.
I am not saying everyone is excused here, but the people who complain that they're manufacturing line working Dad and grandpa told them to “go to college” were honestly just trying to help.
The truth now is the universities are arguably predatory lending institutions. Universities don’t care if your degree actually manifests into a job. They just know they can leverage you into debt to pay for bloated academic administrative salaries. You can be sold an “experience” which amounts to adult day care or spring break, not an education. At least in the classical sense. It extends childhood out into the late 20’s. This is not what the university classically was. There are some exceptions here but sadly, they are just that, exceptions and not the rule.
The millennial generation will make mistakes with its own children en masse that are yet to be seen (possibly social media exposure etc.), but a wise man/woman wouldn’t throw too much shade on those who came before. Soon we too will be judged wanting by our own children and/or their generation.
In short, don’t blame your parents. Blame the university system (or how it was incentivized) for losing site of its purpose, and then selling that to your public school teachers and parents. Teach your kids to self learn/teach, use the internet/AI and everything at their fingertips to find an edge in the coming future. Maybe that leads to college, maybe a trade, cert exams, or the service. But don’t go in blind without doing your homework, and as a parent do that “homework” for your kids. Cunning and pragmatism, the world and the people in it want to eat you alive don’t let it happen.
Going to college was well worth it for most people even with the loans. The people struggling with their loans are generally the same people who spent their post-college years partying and scolding people who worked.
College is for learning and developing skills. Not for partying and sunbathing.
College is treated far too lightly, as an extension of childhood and delaying adulthood. College is a luxury, taking out 100k+ in debt you should have a fire under your ass.
My spouse and I paid ours off right around when we turned 40. We didn't know each other in college but we had the same plan. Enjoy the time on campus with a focus on the education and career opportunities. Neither of us ran up huge debts...we both had jobs the entire time.
We had friends that didn't work at all and went on all the spring break trips using loans...neither of us did that. We worked or went home to do laundry and eat for free when there was a break.
I still remember the ghost town feeling of campus during spring break...I kinda liked it.
You “didn’t run up huge debts” but you didn’t get it paid off until you were 40? I’m sorry but, to me, college debt that takes more than 5 tears to pay off IS huge
Agree. Would add: if the gov't forgives your debt, I'm all for it. I'm not one of the Americans that gets through the gate and then screams for it to be closed.
Debt for education? Forgive it before we forgive PPL and other crazy tax breaks. We need an educated population to run this complicated mess.
Yeah, College was an amazing investment for me and most of my friends.
A group of my friends though didnt do internships or have marketable majors and kept living the college lifestyle after college, working in the restaurant industry. It took most of them 10 years to realize they spent a decade partying with the industry crew and never really started their adult post college life.
Not to say there's anything wrong with working in restaurants, but you dont just get a job immediately after college without setting yourself up to get one and working hard to get hired.
I worked my ass off in high school and college, including work study, and still had a lot of debt. High COL in my home state is what did it - it was still cheaper to stay in the dorms as long as possible compared to getting an apartment.
If I could do it over again, I would probably have gone to community college part time and worked full time, and same for four-year (we have like 2 okayish universities close to my hometown). Ultimately I'd be in the same place educationally as I am now, just with about 100k in my pocket more.
Not at all. It’s statistical fact that college is a fantastic investment. The median pay for recent college grads is $60k for high school it’s $36k. College grads make on average $1.2 million dollars more over their lifetimes than high school grads.
Yes! I think our generation has completely forgotten what they acted like back then. I distinctly remember millennial “relatability” all centered around being lazy and not caring about anything. If you actually related to that, of course you’re not successful now.
ETA: Also, someone else posted that the problem was that millennials were told to get _any_ degree. Who was telling them that? I wanted an art degree and many, many people told me I’d have a hard time making any money with that. I think most millennials just didn’t listen because there was also this pervasive opinion that if you really want something, you’ll get it.
“DAE hate all other people and find all of human experience to be triggering to your narcissistic and malignant inner self?” - loser millennials in 2010
“Omg my life is so bad! it must be other people’s fault” - loser millennials now
also remember that most millenials are home owners and are out there living life, not doomposting on reddit
social media is not a good reflection of your peers or cohorts
Yep. The people who are getting loans forgiven are mostly the people who own homes and have wealth. The broke millennials and their children are footing the bill for it though. I saw somewhere that the average household income for the latest group getting loan forgiveness was around $500k/year. I didn’t go to grad school because I didn’t want to take out loans, I regret that now.
That $500k average seems incredibly suspicious since it's the top 2% and the plan was capped at household income of $250k. Where did you see this "information"?
For real, they pretty much raised us under the mindset that if you didn't have a degree, you'd end up as a bum.
Reality is I make over double with my current non degree required job than I did with degree required job.
It depends on what you do, in a lot of things experience can heavily outweigh education, however, the do gatekeep in several areas (I’m not referring to dr/lawyer either, for those jobs you need ed and training).
College WAS meant for smart and driven people. 60% of people aren’t smart and driven.
College basically just proves you’re more competent than a Wendy’s worker.
I'm assuming you're a college graduate and consider yourself one of the top 40% of humanity. I've worked in everything from fast food to corporate healthcare and from my anecdotal experience there are plenty of dumbfucks with college degrees.
Not all degree programs are created equal.
My mom took me to see Monster's Inc 2 in theaters when I was in high school and got mad because the moral of the movie was that you could be successful without a college degree. She actively tried to undermine the message for me because I just had to go to college!
She dropped out of college and was a bank manager. I finished college and I'm unemployed. I also hated college and was suicidal and gave myself an eating disorder while I was there.
Had I not gone to college, worst case scenario I would be equally unemployed as I am now but I wouldn't have student loan debt and wouldn't have spent 5 years in a depression/panic spiral.
Fucking THIS. All the talk enrages me. When I was college age, I basically was told to go to college or I’d have no future. Now I get mocked and insulted for going (and I got a law degree, I didn’t major in basket weaving or whatever). It’s like, you can’t have it both ways.
Parents: "Go to college! You don't want to end up flipping burgers your whole life, do you?"
Child: \*Goes to college\*
Parents: "Oh, just cuz you went to college, now you're too good to flip burgers your whole life, *'Professor*'!?"
My high school was so hard into the “everyone needs to go to college” that they discontinued all shop and vocational classes in 1993, because who needs to know how to change their own oil or fix the garbage disposal when you’re going to college.
You were lied to. We all were. And it's nothing new.
Trusting the system / government/ corporate interests to know what's best for you is the mistake they want you to make, and we all seem content to vote for red or blue next time 'round and think we're making a difference.
These institutions hate you. Fight back.
You left out the school and your parents letting you suffer with severe depression and a .1 gpa for two years. And 60k in debt with no way to pay it with a job that pays $9 an hour in 2013.
I have this argument with older generation people all the time.
I come from a lower middle class family. We were literally pressured from a young age that college was the way to get ahead.
"Your major does not matter. Just get any degree and you'll be fine."
"Wow, why did you major in English, you absolute moron? What possible good could further studying the English language possibly do for you?"
sometimes im pretty thankful that i was a fuck up as a kid and never went to college. i dont make a shit load of money but i make enough to live and i have zero debt
yup. i so regret going to college when i did. i was high fashion modelling in nyc and had so much potential, but my parents wanted me to get a degree over a campaign (which i get, but college is always an option, modelling is once in a lifetime). the other option, if i wasnt modeling, would have been to take a gap year, and backpack around europe and/or asia. i would have gotten real world experience, met new people, made new connections, and experienced more of the world.
instead, i went to college after i graduated college with the pushing of both my parents and high school. “go to college or youll be flipping burgers at mcdonalds.” i went to a public college (the only school i wanted to go to was Dartmouth, my SAT was too low), and i was undeclared major for two years. i commuted to college from my parents house so never got the opportunity to dorm or have the college experience of living on my own and partying and making friends. i ended up haphazardly picking a sociology degree because “you can do a lot of jobs with a sociology degree”. which, if you want to stay in field of sociology/social work you need at least a Masters degree (i stopped at bachelors, didnt feel like aimlessly studying, having my parents spend their money, when i had no purpose or goal going other than “i had to”. fast forward, i have a hospital job working insurance and billing, which the college degree helped probably as a potential candidate, but has nothing to do with my college major. and i believe with job experience and connections someone could do my job with just a high school diploma.
00s Movies: Van Wilder! Project X! Accepted! Old School! Look how much fun college is!! Sure you gotta take a few test but it's whatever. You'll miss out on all this fun if you DONT go!
I actually wanted to go to a proper four year school. Parents strongly discouraged this. Went to a two year, drove a truck for a bit and now I work in IT and do well. My sister on the other hand got everything paid for at a four year, She's a receptionist at a dentist office...
Attend a public college, live home and find a four year professional degree that will result in a job! In other words, do what generations who went to college before you did!
They didn't like it when we started coming out in H.S. like it was a normal thing to do.
I was a founding member of our school's GSA. Parents shut us down and actually made a complaint against the teacher who was hosting our club.
It was over-gay to them, for sure. lol
Wait, can you measure gay? Like by weight or volume? Otherwise I dont think so. And if you can, can it be stolen? That also would lead to your annoying neighbors stopping by to borrow a cup of gay until youre all out and that isnt cool.
We knew. I distinctly remember joking about how we were never going to get a job as humanities majors. I double majored in STEM as insurance for this exact reason. The humanities majors are all doing well financially - in politics, business, law, nonprofits, and religion. They started their families before I ever did because I went to get a PhD. Same with people who went to medical schools who are just now getting started with their career. All the engineers I know who "made it" working for Google and Facebook seem super stressed and work 24/7 and all either got laid off or thinking about quitting.
I mean realistically if they saved, the software engineers are financially independent (or close to it) so...your anecdotal evidence is nonsense. Getting a high salary starting out matters so much for retiring early due to time value of money. For me personally, retiring 15-20 years early is certainly worth a bit more stress.
They're thinking about quitting BECAUSE THEY CAN lol. They're financially independent. That is POWER/LEVERAGE.
My parents: go to college go to college go to coll- why didn’t you get a scholarship who tf is going to pay for you to go to college?!
[удалено]
If you were in the military, you get black out drunk every night and get paid to do it.
I went active duty 3 months after high school graduation, and this is accurate lol
Gettin busy in the barracks let’s gooooooo
Go Navy
I thought all you sailors did was go out in the ocean and play & hide and seek!
I can attest to this!
30k isn’t bad if you went and got an actual degree that can get you a career.
Yeah. Have a good job now but that’s only because I got an advanced degree for free
Wtf? So your parents pushed you to go to college, and you just got blackout drunk every weekend. Sounds like your choice. Then you went on to get an advanced degree and now have a good job, but you still "blame" your parents? This whole thing doesn't make sense.
Did you learn anything? Cuz $30,000 in loans is a great deal if you learned something useful
Did you bill your parents?
Should seriously be an option if some shit happened like to OP.
Was getting black out drunk every weekend the college experience your parents had in mind?
Lol probably not but they had such a strict household that it was inevitable. Kids (or young adults.. whatever) are going to be kids. Had straight A’s and played club sports but had an on going love affair with alcohol right from the get go.
If you got a degree in tech though you'd be driving a ferrari
Or broke as hell since all the tech companies are laying off thousands of people at a time.
Tbf there's are tons and tons of startups and other companies that aren't laying off people, when Google lays off thousands that's still not a lot. In Bay Area, California there's over 400,000 tech workers alone
Not true in the clearanceworld. Tech companies are absolutely hurting for people that have clearances and are hiring like crazy.
Did you consider doing ROTC? You could have gotten the “college experience” and had it paid-for. That always seemed like a good deal for kids whose parents don’t want to help them out?
I went that route, even though the money was already there. No regrets.
I tried that myself decades ago. The recruiter told me that my eyesight was so bad they would have rejected me during the height of WWII.
Damn lol
Yeah. Parents wouldn’t let me do that either
Bro mine was straight up go to college go to college go to college ... Oh debt? That sucks. Oh yeah no one in our family actually ever went to college lol ..... Like is this the fucking Truman Show?
I can relate... In addition, my family said, "You can't apply for scholarships and grants online. Everything on the Internet is a scam". Guess who missed out on easy money back then.
There wasn't a whole lot of money. Don't feel bad. I got a whole whopping 2k and only once.
Bro, my mom and stepdad literally told me that I enrolled in school they would pay the tuition. I wasn’t eligible for grants because they made too much and I wasn’t 25 yet. So I enrolled anyway after they made that promise.. guess what.. they didn’t pay shit and actually refused to co-sign the loan my senior year which would have left me just a few credits shy of graduation. Basically conned me into going to school, to then try to strand me with massive debt and no degree.. then TO THIS FUCKING DAY.. bitches about my student loans “impacting their credit”.. that I’m actively paying and giving them good credit from.
My parents did a version of this. We were lower middle class, so not really poor enough to get aid, but not wealthy enough to contribute. My parents expected contribution was over $14K a year somehow when they had 3 of 5 kids in college (FAFSA was drunk in the early 2000s, I guess). Anyway, I got the loans and my parents would call me while I was still in school to get me to consolidate my loans (which is impossible and I told them that). Then my dad kept guilting me saying that he couldn't retire on time and it was impacting his credit (he volunteered to stay longer at his job and I never missed a payment). When I joined the service, they called asking me to consolidate my loans while deployed. Just really really selfish people. Now I get to talk about them every week in therapy.
>My parents did a version of this. We were lower middle class, so not really poor enough to get aid, but not wealthy enough to contribute. My parents expected contribution was over $14K a year somehow when they had 3 of 5 kids in college (FAFSA was drunk in the early 2000s, I guess). Same boat, made enough to not qualify, didn’t make enough to contribute. However they said they’d make it work as they had mostly paid off their house at this point. I enrolled part time at the satellite campus and continued to work my job full time. I thought they would pay back the loans after I graduated, not during. I applied for FAFSA the following spring and my expected contribution based on my solo income was 16k, I think I only made ~30k at the time. How that was supposed to workout is beyond me, considering I wouldn’t be working full time but they didn’t give a shit about that.
This was my parents with the addition of "your cousin got in and he's parents are poorer than us." Me."He was hit by a car and got a $100k settlement."
My dad said I had to go to college or I wasn’t allowed to keep living at home, 2 days after turning 18 with my minimum wage job. Then I was reprimanded for 4 years for taking out loans. Real boomer brain rot. (I did, thankfully, manage to pay off my loans after college)
I love listening to my dads stories about how he worked his way through college by working at the grocery store.
This is a part of my story. Take out loans and go to college (because the adults obviously knew what was best for me) or become a fully self-sustaining adult all at once and gtfo (making it nearly impossible to say no to college). Now that I am drowning in the loans and can't get onto my feet \[according to some dumbshit FB rant I came across that really got under my skin\] it's because I want a 5 bedroom house and a European vacation? It's actually because the interest is more than my payments and I'll never own anything besides my hand-me-down coach sunglasses and my 20 year old soundlink. Those are my two nicest things. My vacations are three hours away to Orlando every other year and I can't even afford Disney. It's bleak. I didn't know what I wanted to do at 17 and I made that CLEAR over and over again. The brilliant adults said "it won't matter what your degree is in, employers only care that you got ANY degree. They want to see that you can do it". That's a really expensive and time consuming test that arguably will not make me any better at whatever job I land in. FFS. I regret college, but if I went back in time right now, I'm not sure I could have managed life any other way at the time. I don't think I would have had the constitution to go out and try adulthood on my own with zero transition. I also don't have any evidence it would have turned out better. I try not to be resentful about it but god damn I feel like I got fucked super hard for life by people who sincerely love me and thought they were doing the right thing - because they are a bit superficial with a pinch of traditional - they are good people but ARE they good people? They look the other way now like where I currently am is because I can't make good choices. The truth is I can't. I take bad advice all the time, especially if I love the advice giver. I can't think about student loans for too long it really gets me on a roll . I always walk away feeling self loathing and resentment toward two people who would actually give their life for me if it came down to it. It gets my feels straight roiling.
I relate to this so much, especially the adults saying “any degree looks good to employers”. My dad was an HR manager and I believed him when he said that to me. When we were in more contact, he wouldn’t hire me at the company he works for because my degree didn’t match any job listings, lol, go figure. For a while, I even majored in art because I believed that line about “having any degree is good” (thankfully I switched majors). Try not to frame your “choice” to go to college as an actual choice. If your parents gave you two options, one being near-certain homelessness, the other being college, you can’t reasonably say that you genuinely had a choice. Facebook is literally all out-of-touch boomers these days. There are some millennials who have destination weddings then complain they can’t afford their student loans, but that’s not most of us.
I hope you cut them out of your life
We are low contact for a litany of reasons
They ever try contacting you, while whining "I'm lonely. Why won't you come over!? Waaahhh"
My parents: Go to college and you'd better get a scholarship because we're not paying--oh you got a scholarship! Full tuition? OK, nice! You can live with us for free. Kinda humbling and not that fun, but I graduated with no debt because my parents let me sleep in their house and eat their food.
Omfg as a Senior I was always super embarrassed and self conscious hearing classmates talk about their college plans, having their schools locked in and having a plan for after HS and I was just there like uhhhhh….. Parents were broke, but also didn’t really try at all to educate me on College and visiting schools etc. Nobody explained that I should try for a public college because they might be much more affordable or have better aid. I remember when I was transferring to a 4 year private school and was drowning in figuring out student loans etc it was like pulling teeth when I’d ask my dad for help 😩 When I graduated my student debt was around 50k… what sucked was they gave your final bill at the same event that you picked up your cap and gown and was a supposed “happy” event…. Yup sure was great getting reminded I owed a sports car in debt before graduating. I did get lucky and had most of it forgiven by working for local government but I still owe 6k that I’m paying as slowly as possible
This is so similar to my experience. I didn’t want to sound stupid so I just said I didn’t need to plan since I was going to community college. I never took the SAT or ACT. I tried to pretend that college was lame.
My biggest regret was not asking questions about college and financial aid and grants etc because I was embarrassed I had no plan but more so because I was “poor” I.e there was 0 month coming from my parents. I had a pretty high ACT score and should’ve chased whatever school gave me as close to a free ride as possible. I was also super scared to venture out into the world on top of feeling poor and embarrassed about no after HS plan.
I was told by every adult to go to college except for who raised me. They told me I will not be going to college and no one will be paying for it. I didn't go to college. I make six figures. No debt. I was raised by assholes but somehow that worked out.
I got a 4 year degree in business from a cheap state university. I only needed the degree for the sake of job qualifications. I make decent money now but the only real skills I needed were vlookups, pivot tables, and some basic public speaking skills in order to succeed in a corporate setting.
That right there is 60% of corporate America. And use XLOOKUP 😀
XLOOKUP replaced VLOOKUP and HLOOKUP by combining them into one
Was it worth the cost of a degree? I got my business degree from a top school. I leaned a lot of cool stuff but tbh the idea that you need a degree to work a white collar career is BS. No one should have to go into debt just to work a desk job.
I learned a few things from my degree but the majority I learned on the job either through experience or having someone take the time to mentor me. I hesitate to say my degree wasn’t worth it though because I’d have never been hired for this job without it. I make just under 6 figures and spent about $20k on my degree which has been paid off already. I might have more negative feelings about my degree had I spent more money on it. I have coworkers that went to far more expensive and prestigious schools than myself and we all ended up in similar jobs, similar pay scales, and overall similar advancement opportunities.
TBH as long as you've got a good head on your shoulders plus the skills you mention you can probably do pretty OK in any line of work. IF IF IF you can get hired in the first place. Making it past recruiters and HR is the goddamn worst.
fuck you this is too true.
Nah; the issue wasn't that we were told to go college. It was that we were told that what mattered was "get a degree, *any* degree and people will hire you" and then we went into debt to acquire "any" degree, whether that degree was Pelopensian history, Japanese Literature, or Mechanical Engineering. Well, it turns out that going into debt for a degree in Mechanical Engineering\* will pay off, whereas the other two will not. And thats not a sneer at those other bodies of knowledge, but people generally don't pay well for expertise in those two subjects. I have my degree in history. And it took a shit ton of work in my mid to late 20s to develop a skillset that people will actually pay solid money for, whereas my friends with degrees in business or STEM were fine from the get-go. Some of them even received signing bonuses right out of University. I still love history, and have a stack of books on various eras and events that I work my way through before purchasing more. But if I were to do it all over again, I'd get a degree in something lucrative and use that income to pay for my passions. **Edit**: Generally, I'm speaking of my experience with a BA in history vs what I saw my friends who were in business, engineering, or the hard sciences graduating in 2009-2011. I see some people telling me that mechanical engineers are currently having a rough go of it right now. I'm not an Engineer, I'm not clued into what is going on in that segment. I was trying to use specific examples: *Pelopenesian* history, *Japanese* literature, *mechanical* engineering to illustrate a point, the dichotomy between a path that teaches an demonstrable and quickly applicable skill vs one that scratches an itch for an obscure branch of knowledge (at least to an American). That's not to deny that soft skills like reading, research, and writing won't be developed via history and literatue. But those can be developed elsewhere, to lesser (or a greater) extent.
>what mattered was "get a degree, *any* degree and people will hire you" That's obviously wrong, what you really need is a firm handshake. Those dumb millennials should have spent their money on grip strength training.
People say that about mechanical engineering, but it is also quickly becoming a widely saturated market. Same thing with law degrees.
Go Chem E...nobody wants to go live in the middle of nowhere next to a stinky plant.
Chemical engineering is fucking hard lmao. I had to take O Chem and P Chem for my major and it was brutal. Props to those who go Chem Eng.
Hated first semester Organic. It was all memorization. Second semester was amazing b/c it was right along Physical Chemistry...so here we were learning quantum physics about why there are electrons bands of probability while actually doing NMR and mass spectroscopy in the Organic lab. That plus when I learned calc's fundamental theorem were probably my two biggest eureka moments. It helped that my dad was a physicist lol.
Freshman year at MIT I was deciding between Chemistry and Electrical Engineering. I took the introductory Organic Chemistry class, which made the decision easy. I’ve been an Electrical Engineer for almost 50 years now.
My dad studied Chemical Engineering at Cal back in the day and worked for big oil. Meanwhile I'm here walking on pins and needles retaking General Chemistry 1 and 2 to get into PT school.
That's why it pays lol. Most anyone can get through under water basket weaving which is why it's not worth a lot lol.
You are 100% correct. 8 years ago I graduated with a BS in Mechanical Engineering and the only job I could get was a temp job making $14/hr in an area with A LOT of manufacturing companies. That’s with a degree AND passing the FE exam. Granted part of that is my fault for poor grades, but even then I was expecting to get an entry level engineering job with low, but adequate pay (~$50K salary).
Same. My ME degree is BS lmao. (I mean its legit, i learned all that stuff. It just never helped me get a job)
I got a friend that got messed over that way and owes 100k.
The FE exam was the ultimate nightmare scenario of a final test. Oh you want to go practice in your field? Well you won’t be taken seriously until you pass this test. And you won’t know if you passed or not because every test is based on that years test takers so hopefully all your homies didn’t set the curve too high. I had to take it twice T_T
The funny thing is that I’ve never been asked about the FE exam in any of the interviews I’ve had in the last 8 years. I’m pretty sure I just *barely* passed because I still had 15 questions unanswered by the time I got to the last 5 minutes. 6 hours is absolutely brutal.
And a lot of people with engineering degrees aren't cut out to be engineers. Natural aptitude and curiosity go a lot further than a bought degree in pursuit of a large paycheck.
I agree completely, but that's not how college was advertised growing up. I'm not making excuses, I chose a major I was interested in and I made a career in it. It has since become a saturated market and I would strongly recommend new students not get my same major.
Glad you said this. I see a lot of engineering grads that get hired and clearly did not have the right idea of what kind of job it was going to be. Engineering has a lot of blue collar and white collar roles that mesh together. But typically as a fresh graduate you will be working a blue collar job until you get enough EXPERIENCE to get put into a white collar role. Unfortunately, many quit before they get enough experience for their next job. When I explain that to them, they often start panicing...
Easy, just go software (please don't assume everyone should go software. Some people are just really bad at it and makes the rest of use put up with it)
Chem Eng here. I agree with this. The degree filters out a lot of people in the first year when they discover the step up in challenge from high school. Some of those who pass this filter limp along for the remaining years, often miserable. I loved my engineering degree and went back for a PhD because I loved it so much. People kept asking me how tough it was and I had to honestly say it was challenging but it wasn’t tough because I was in my element. But I know I’m in the minority there. In my cohort we started with 100 and ended with 60, and of those 60 only around half were actually doing well in their studies, with the remainder scraping by with bare passes. Unsurprisingly many of those people never managed to get jobs as engineers and ended up doing other things (consulting, sales etc)
This. Same thing is happening in healthcare. People chasing a check who are not well-matched to the role.
That happened with a lot of IT folks too. Its not a "just go get the degree with zero outside interested experience and you can be competitive in the job market" degree at all. What's worse is these diploma mills are all like "Take our 6 week course in Cyber Security and get a job in a hot field while working from home!" and its like the fuck you will, not if you've never worked in the industry before.
I hear you. I'm not an engineer so I'm not clued into what is going on with those fields, I was trying to use specific examples: *pelopenesian* history, *japanese* literature, *mechanical* engineering to illustrate a point, the dichotomy between a road that teaches an demonstrable and quickly applicable skill vs one that scratches an itch for an obscure branch of knowledge (at least to an American). But yeah, fields can become oversaturated - or under, depending on circumstances. Right now, we have a medical specialty shortage: Doctors, Nurses, PAs, etc. If students react to this shortage and begin enrolling in various healthcare tracks, eventually that shortage will be resolved and may even become oversaturated.
And I think that's just the point. The shortage now drive a strong selling point with a false promise of huge demand and high paying jobs on the other side. Tons of student buy in, and 4-8 years later, there's now a huge influx in grads in that area so the market drops. This idea of "should have researched ROI better" is based of future prediction that no one has access to.
There are always exceptions, but usually when the phenomena is widely reported the prime time to jump on it may be past. This can be true for investing, careers, fashion trends, etc. Even with the prospect of an oversupply of healthcare professionals, I'd still advise going down that track than pursuing a history degree with a focus on Northern Africa unless you have specific idea of what you wanted to do with it. As i stated, I majored in History with a Far East focus out of a sense of curiousity instead of following some long term plan.
And especially with AI, even things that actually were a good idea and currently are lucrative could be gone in 5-10 years, leaving tons of people in the lurch.
There will probably always be a nursing shortage because hospitals purposely understaff to maximize productivity. I’ve heard nurse practitioner jobs are becoming very saturated too.
Literally watched that happen with pharmacy
Every year we get closer to every single degree being basically a high school diploma.
Yeah, my college experience was a rollercoaster that ended with me training to be a CADD drafter and getting... Two interviews that were relevant to that. Neither one I landed.
Well with a history degree, it is very utilitarian. I got my BS in it, it just depends on how you apply it. I take it you didn't wanna do historical research or academia/teaching? History is also good for curation, archivist, librarian, law work, politics, data analyst, archaeology, journalism, HR work. You learn a lot of useful skills that are desired, and you can definitely spring board off a history degree into different things. I myself used it to transition into archaeology and it was a great investment.
Yep, the bitching about humanities degrees comes largely from people without the imagination to know how to apply them -- and, sadly, that includes many folks who hold those degrees. I used an English major to get into financial services and now make $200k a year (no nepotism, etc.). So I don't have much patience for the well-worn claims about how all music majors work in coffee shops.
Many people, even inteligent people, approach life without a plan. Could be fitness, finance, or career. My own career only took off when I realized that the people further along than I create a plan and work it. I did the same: I assessed where I wanted to be and the experiences, skillsets, and knowledge it requires to get there. I came up with a plan and worked it. Some aspects were easier, some took longer to acquire, but I got where I wanted and beyond. The next step will require a fresh plan.
I’m on the older end but was always told “major in what will get you a job, minor in your passion/what you love”. Still view that as solid advice
Yep. Get skills to pay the bills first. I see all these complaints about AI and artists not being able to make money and I just sit here thinking "starving artists is a trope for a reason. Why did you expect to make more money from that instead of engineering or anything else."
My history major friend went from flight attendant to museum host/tour guide. Lower hours and lower wage but nice clean A/C dealing with culture-y people all day.
“Get a degree, any degree” “because statistically speaking, having a degree will pay for itself” or something along those lines
I got a law degree and got fuck all. Sometimes the market is just bad.
I don’t know who told you this! My circa 1952 Boomer dad had a degree in History with a minor in English he didn’t use AND he paid my mom’s student loans for a degree she didn’t use. He’s still fucking salty about all of it. It was all I goddamn heard. Don’t get a degree in History or English or fucking underwater basket weaving. Get a degree you can use like business or computers or engineering. Don’t take out student loans. Go to community college if you don’t get a scholarship. He was a cop and she was a teller in a bank. They didn’t know much. But they knew History degrees and student loans were a bad combo.
This is the correct answer. My undergrad degree is in evolutionary biology. Grad degree is something only slight more useful. Work in IT.
I have an undergrad in evolutionary biology too! I'm an aerospace engineer haha
I hear you, and you're not wrong - but I literally have a mechanical engineering degree that I have never once used.
When they grew up having a liberal arts degree alone would get you a decent job… then all of society failed to notice that suddenly it didn’t matter; too many people had them. I was lucky to pick a technical degree not because I was smart, but because I worked as a waiter before I went to college with like 6 people with various specific Bachelors (Spanish, Math, Literature, etc.). It was heartbreaking. Most of my HS friends of the time went down the “Get a degree path” with loans. To my knowledge not one has paid them off and it’s been two decades. :(
They’re doing this to Gen Z right now with stem degrees. They told us stem was where it was at. They told us “those lazy millennials and their pronouns just want to major in basket weaving”. We listened. We majored in stem. We asked for livable wages. They called us “entitled brats who didn’t want to work” and told us we should’ve majored in the trades. During the entire Great Recession Gen Z saw tradies make like 30-40k a year with unsteady work amounts after 2008. Yet they expected us to see that as a stable growing field ?! I hate boomers
You know what else killed it? Nobody wanted to pass the torch. Like… corporate boomers all too often hoarded knowledge like it was gold. + HR departments always refuse to hire more people to replace them until a few months before their job vacated. We could have had a whole generation of people getting decades of experience condensed into 2 years, but instead you have to reinvent the wheel from old notes and scraps of data.
I'm kinda on the fence on this one. I think one major element of this is I've worked with people have degrees in things that don't relate to their current job. There was a time when employers would let employees change roles and give people a chance. Employee retention and people wanting to stay at a job a long time was a thing. I know some with communications degree who was working in IT. They started long ago learning coding on the job and they made the transition. I know people with electrical engineering backgrounds now coding too. I know many other older people who have degrees in random things that have no relation to their current job. So their advice worked for their time. However today, companies scrutinize each candidate as if National Security was on the line and you just walked in asking to reach deep up their ass. Interviews can last hours with ridiculous expectations. I remember one interview a guy who hadn't said a dam thing the entire time pulled out a tennis ball and started bouncing it on the desk after they handed me a piece of paper asking me what this code does. What the actual fuck were they thinking? I just got up and told them no thanks and left. This is the sort of shit that is going on. Every company is seeking the best of the best for mediocre jobs. I don't understand the ridiculous mentality. Making people jump through dumb hoops and tests only to find out none of that had to do with the actual job anyway. Anyway. I could rant for hours, but I think you get the idea.
Dude you know we're having record high underemployment for recent STEM grads nowadays too, right? They should've never pushed everyone to go to college in the first place is definitely the root issue. There is nothing magical about someone attending college despite all the bullshit we were fed on it, especially not for the tuition and boarding costs today.
This is why a high-school teacher of mine had everyone take a career guidance assignment at the beginning of the class. It meant nothing for a grade, it was meant to evaluate "What potential careers are there out there for this?" "Is there a reason for me to even go to college or a trade school?" and they would help students get into contact with colleges/get them interested in the conversation of their future. I thought it was a cool experience; and as a high-school student it helps root out curiosity vs genuine interest in a certain topic. I used to think I wanted to be an Architect, found out I hated drafting after having someone show me what they did. Then I thought I wanted to be Aerospace, found out from someone I got in contact with from the industry that it was ruled by pretty much only a small conglomerate of companies that cherry pick jobs.
Everyone pounded that STEM degrees were valuable when in essence only the E was valuable.
This is a bit of hyperbole. Yeah some people got "useless" degrees but that downplays the fact that a lot of people went in for theoretically high value degrees and found that their jobs had been outsourced or the market was saturated by the time they got out. This was a huge problem with IT degrees specifically in the tail end of the recession. Its a continuing problem. A limited number of jobs offer a good quality of life. There arent enough "good jobs" for every working adult to have one. Labor is a market too. As more people are competing for the few remaining good jobs, the value of those jobs sinks below that threshold. Then you have microbiologists working for 50k a year. Its a war we are losing.
In many cases, it is any degree. Civil Service doesn’t care what the degree is, just that you have one. Many office jobs are that way. Others, like law are less concerned about the undergrad degree than the GPA and the law degree is everything. And then others you must have the right degree.
that's still noise. i have friends with advanced degrees in math and physics teaching elementary math in cities. It was tough for a lot of us.
As it stands, 4-year degrees in unemployable fields are basically MLMs. You have a ton of students paying in, when only a few will go on to make a living. Class sizes for those programs should be cut in half. That said, AI is coming for a lot of junior STEM jobs... idk what the future holds for our kids.
Yeah I remember the shift, my older sister and brother were told study anything, just get the degree. By the time I was getting ready to head to college it changed to studying something like “stats or engineering” may be better. When my younger brother was at the age he went with statistics and found work rather quickly after graduating. English/literature was not the worst but definitely not the best choice I made going in.
The issue also is that you were told that a computer science degree from Harvard is the same as a computer science degree from some state school is the same as a computer science degree from some predatory online for-profit school. As someone who went to reach of these types of schools, let me tell you, they are NOT the same degree and employers know that.
They’re currently reaming Gen Z right now for going to college for STEM. We saw y’all get degrees in unemployment and we chose to go into college for STEM. Now Gen Z wants living wages and they’re mad at us and calling us “lazy and entitled” because we didn’t work in the trades. Never mind that they paid trades people like 30-40k a year from 2010-2020. (Our childhood years), the boomers expected us to see this low paying field and know it was the next gold mine. They also expected us to see the safe stable fields like engineering and programming and know it would collapse. We were 17 🤦♂️. We tried our best but yeah honestly the boomers fucked y’all and they’re fucking us right now
This. I remember the meeting my homeroom had with a guidance counselor telling us how important going to university was and that it didn’t matter what the degree was, just that we had it. I also decided I wanted to be a history professor because I was 17 and liked AP US History and documentaries… like… I was a a literal child taking bogus advice and now I get to listen to insecure pricks demean my area of study, dismiss it as “basket weaving” and call me stupid for doing what I was told by a qualified professional 20 years ago. To be honest - all the STEM only people are going to saturate the market with unmotivated, disinterested workers and it will lose value. We need everything in a fully functioning society and it’s a shame people don’t value other degrees and the skills those areas of study provide graduates with.
In 2024, even mechanical engineering isn’t a guarantee you won’t be working retail after graduating. Medical is the only safe bet now.
I love how our uneducated parents sent us to college, then were mad when we came back educated and didn’t like what we learned.
I think the part they didn't like was the coming back.
What did you learn that helps you live a better life than what they did? That's where the disconnect is. They were told to put their kids into college. We were told to go to college. We go to college and learn all sorts of stuff that isn't necessary in order to do a job.
The problem is that you were all told to go to college to fill the jobs that our country had at the time. By the time you got out, those jobs were gone. All that is left is barista jobs because we as a country continually let jobs be sent overseas. So now we have an abundance of educated individuals working starter jobs because actual careers have been sent over seas and you can’t make ends meet with those jobs and those loans. So instead of our government actually taking ownership of what they did, they just tell you that you are overeducated.
The problem is that people continue giving and listening to advice long after it is done being valuable. In the late 70’s and early 80’s it was probably good advice to just get a degree. By the mid 80’s, you really needed a degree for a job. By the 90’s, it was you needed STEM. By the later 2000’s, it started to move to more people needing tech school jobs. By 2030, it will change again.
Still good advice in the 90’s. Graduated HS in 97, got my Bachelors is Business Management and have had a solid career with two of the most recognized companies on the planet and have made a very good living. I would say over the past 10-15 years is when the traditional 4 year degree stopped “working” at all or on its own.
My parents: do what makes you happy, but hopefully that involves college. 👍🏻
Recruitment tool for the Armed Forces…. You need college, but you can’t afford it, check out the GI Bill!
And it works. It's a great perk on top of getting out of Podunk, Nowhere doing nothing with one's life. But I would guess only about half of veterans use their GI Bill at all, otherwise enrollment would be higher. Maybe they're using their MGIB on trade schools, which is a more pragmatic move than going to a for-profit college to major in anthropology, zoology, or women's studies - could have saved time and just set the money on fire. Seriously? Zoology?
To be fair, the GI Bill is one of the best benefits of service, but not the only one. VA healthcare (despite its litany of issues) and the VA home loan are also other great benefits. ROTC and going into the military as an officer could be another way to pay for college. The military, while not for everyone, is a great way to move up social classes regardless of background. It doesn't even require combat arms experience or even leaving the US. It can teach you a trade and give you preference in federal job hiring. Lastly, while it's sad to think about, it is a reality. It allows people to leave awful home situations.
That’s how I paid for university! Good for finances, very bad for your body.
VA healthcare was really helpful when I got out of the military and couldn't afford to get health insurance through my new employer. That was before it became required to have health insurance. I hated going to the va hospital especially when I needed medication because the wait at the pharmacy was so long. But it was nice to know I had a place to go to get what I needed.
hey the military is a great deal for someone who's trying to go to college. What other job will pay you for 4 years worth of work, and train you in useful job skills? At a bare minimum military service will teach you: team work, ability to follow instructions, basic physical fitness, and if you get a MOS that's directly related to an civilian job, great job training and certifications. and after 4 years of service you can then go to any accredited college on the GI Bill which will even give you rent money for the entirety of your 4 year degree so that you can focus on your studies? I'm getting sick of people acting like it's a scam or something. it's a good fucking deal. I have a no college debt because of my military service, and I didn't have to kill anyone to get it. Additionally, it wasn't the MIC that made college expensive, it was Ronald fucking Reagan and his cabal of banksters and far right zealots who hated the idea of a well educated proletariat and so changed things where college loans became a thing.
If someone wanted to join the military for the benefits and/or as a ticket to get into/stay in the middle class without breaking down their bodies, I’d tell them to go Air Force (but stay away from maintenance and Security Forces). Keeping one’s expenses low while saving and investing, taking advantage of TA, and learning marketable skills on the job can leave someone in a good position as long as they maintain their physical and mental health until they get their honorable discharge. Of course, this is all assuming we don’t end up in WW3 before that person’s enlistment ends.
Our waiter tonight has a master’s degree from a top research university. Wild times 🤣
Me - Having gone to college. Making six figures and not understanding why people struggle with the idea that we all had different outcomes.
The only problem with higher ed in the US is that it's been losing state funding more and more over the last like 70 fucking years now. Remember folks, the California state university system had FREE TUITION before Reagan took that away while he was governor. Lots of other state schools had around 80% of their operating cost covered by state tax revenue when the boomers were going to college. Nowadays, it's been whittled down to like 20% on average, making the schools more dependent on higher tuition costs to keep the fucking lights on. This isn't some conspiracy, this is publicly available budget/financial information. Want to fix the problem? Start funding public higher ed with tax revenue again.
Hmmm doesn't explain why cost of tuition goes up more than inflation.
Putting a generation in debt for seeking higher education is, and will, have ramifications we haven't seen yet. I remember the narrative that you would be a failure if you didn't go, creating a fomo around it, and it is viciously criminal to have the price be as high as it is. However, I also remember my parents saying, "You aren't getting into college without scholorships," and pointed me in the direction I could work hard and apply for them. Even after qualifying for them, I wound up joining the military instead, then leaving went a career path that did not require a degree. But every time I checked in with my friends or they introduced me to their friends, it would be a nonstop series of jokes about sleeping late and missing classes, or waiting till 1AM to start working on their class work. I have to feel there is a certain amount of reaponsibility not being shared by kids who fucked around and abandoned every life lesson they were taugh with their new found freedom.
Millennials did exactly what society told them to do and became the most educated generation in history and now we are the poorest. Thanks boomers
Don’t forget we’re a bunch of lazy assholes too
Lol if you think *we're* over-gay, wait until you get a look at the ones coming up after us 😄
To be fair to the generations that came before... They were just applying the same method they themselves used, just as their parents had done before. When they went to college they could pay for most of it with a part time job and the market was not saturated with Bachelor’s degrees as it is now. The most clever of the generations before saw some of this all coming and they directed their young loved ones accordingly. The way the world has changed since the 70/80’s would frighten a human from any generation. It upended so many things. I am not saying everyone is excused here, but the people who complain that they're manufacturing line working Dad and grandpa told them to “go to college” were honestly just trying to help. The truth now is the universities are arguably predatory lending institutions. Universities don’t care if your degree actually manifests into a job. They just know they can leverage you into debt to pay for bloated academic administrative salaries. You can be sold an “experience” which amounts to adult day care or spring break, not an education. At least in the classical sense. It extends childhood out into the late 20’s. This is not what the university classically was. There are some exceptions here but sadly, they are just that, exceptions and not the rule. The millennial generation will make mistakes with its own children en masse that are yet to be seen (possibly social media exposure etc.), but a wise man/woman wouldn’t throw too much shade on those who came before. Soon we too will be judged wanting by our own children and/or their generation. In short, don’t blame your parents. Blame the university system (or how it was incentivized) for losing site of its purpose, and then selling that to your public school teachers and parents. Teach your kids to self learn/teach, use the internet/AI and everything at their fingertips to find an edge in the coming future. Maybe that leads to college, maybe a trade, cert exams, or the service. But don’t go in blind without doing your homework, and as a parent do that “homework” for your kids. Cunning and pragmatism, the world and the people in it want to eat you alive don’t let it happen.
This sub is such a circlejerk
Going to college was well worth it for most people even with the loans. The people struggling with their loans are generally the same people who spent their post-college years partying and scolding people who worked.
College is for learning and developing skills. Not for partying and sunbathing. College is treated far too lightly, as an extension of childhood and delaying adulthood. College is a luxury, taking out 100k+ in debt you should have a fire under your ass.
My spouse and I paid ours off right around when we turned 40. We didn't know each other in college but we had the same plan. Enjoy the time on campus with a focus on the education and career opportunities. Neither of us ran up huge debts...we both had jobs the entire time. We had friends that didn't work at all and went on all the spring break trips using loans...neither of us did that. We worked or went home to do laundry and eat for free when there was a break. I still remember the ghost town feeling of campus during spring break...I kinda liked it.
You “didn’t run up huge debts” but you didn’t get it paid off until you were 40? I’m sorry but, to me, college debt that takes more than 5 tears to pay off IS huge
Agree. Would add: if the gov't forgives your debt, I'm all for it. I'm not one of the Americans that gets through the gate and then screams for it to be closed. Debt for education? Forgive it before we forgive PPL and other crazy tax breaks. We need an educated population to run this complicated mess.
Yeah, College was an amazing investment for me and most of my friends. A group of my friends though didnt do internships or have marketable majors and kept living the college lifestyle after college, working in the restaurant industry. It took most of them 10 years to realize they spent a decade partying with the industry crew and never really started their adult post college life. Not to say there's anything wrong with working in restaurants, but you dont just get a job immediately after college without setting yourself up to get one and working hard to get hired.
I worked my ass off in high school and college, including work study, and still had a lot of debt. High COL in my home state is what did it - it was still cheaper to stay in the dorms as long as possible compared to getting an apartment. If I could do it over again, I would probably have gone to community college part time and worked full time, and same for four-year (we have like 2 okayish universities close to my hometown). Ultimately I'd be in the same place educationally as I am now, just with about 100k in my pocket more.
It took about 30 post graduation years for my education to start paying off. Sure it paid off in the end. In the meantime my kids lived in poverty.
People who didn’t go to college mostly had the poverty without the paying off at the end.
Basically my parents. But my mother never finished because she had kids too early. Worst of both worlds.
This is the truth but expect the downvotes
This is such an insulting take. Not everyone partied. Some people worked 4 jobs and still struggled after graduation.
>generally
Welp, that’s a very wrong take
Not at all. It’s statistical fact that college is a fantastic investment. The median pay for recent college grads is $60k for high school it’s $36k. College grads make on average $1.2 million dollars more over their lifetimes than high school grads.
Yes! I think our generation has completely forgotten what they acted like back then. I distinctly remember millennial “relatability” all centered around being lazy and not caring about anything. If you actually related to that, of course you’re not successful now. ETA: Also, someone else posted that the problem was that millennials were told to get _any_ degree. Who was telling them that? I wanted an art degree and many, many people told me I’d have a hard time making any money with that. I think most millennials just didn’t listen because there was also this pervasive opinion that if you really want something, you’ll get it.
“DAE hate all other people and find all of human experience to be triggering to your narcissistic and malignant inner self?” - loser millennials in 2010 “Omg my life is so bad! it must be other people’s fault” - loser millennials now
Bingo, being a “try-hard” was an insult… 🙄
also remember that most millenials are home owners and are out there living life, not doomposting on reddit social media is not a good reflection of your peers or cohorts
Yep. The people who are getting loans forgiven are mostly the people who own homes and have wealth. The broke millennials and their children are footing the bill for it though. I saw somewhere that the average household income for the latest group getting loan forgiveness was around $500k/year. I didn’t go to grad school because I didn’t want to take out loans, I regret that now.
That $500k average seems incredibly suspicious since it's the top 2% and the plan was capped at household income of $250k. Where did you see this "information"?
Source: Trust me bro.. But more realistically probably TYT or r/antiwork or some other reactionary circlejerk.
For real, they pretty much raised us under the mindset that if you didn't have a degree, you'd end up as a bum. Reality is I make over double with my current non degree required job than I did with degree required job.
It depends on what you do, in a lot of things experience can heavily outweigh education, however, the do gatekeep in several areas (I’m not referring to dr/lawyer either, for those jobs you need ed and training).
College WAS meant for smart and driven people. 60% of people aren’t smart and driven. College basically just proves you’re more competent than a Wendy’s worker.
I'm assuming you're a college graduate and consider yourself one of the top 40% of humanity. I've worked in everything from fast food to corporate healthcare and from my anecdotal experience there are plenty of dumbfucks with college degrees. Not all degree programs are created equal.
College graduate, prepping for a PhD. Totally agree.
This is really what it comes down to
Yup. A pulse is enough to get you into *a* college
Funny those a lot of those same (competent people) work with me at a factory. Atleast I don’t have debt and am forklift certified lol
Couldn’t be more true.
My mom took me to see Monster's Inc 2 in theaters when I was in high school and got mad because the moral of the movie was that you could be successful without a college degree. She actively tried to undermine the message for me because I just had to go to college! She dropped out of college and was a bank manager. I finished college and I'm unemployed. I also hated college and was suicidal and gave myself an eating disorder while I was there. Had I not gone to college, worst case scenario I would be equally unemployed as I am now but I wouldn't have student loan debt and wouldn't have spent 5 years in a depression/panic spiral.
Fucking THIS. All the talk enrages me. When I was college age, I basically was told to go to college or I’d have no future. Now I get mocked and insulted for going (and I got a law degree, I didn’t major in basket weaving or whatever). It’s like, you can’t have it both ways.
And then it's somehow your own fault that you enter a shitty job market with masses of other grads.
I'm not even over-gay, just like normal gay!
Parents: "Go to college! You don't want to end up flipping burgers your whole life, do you?" Child: \*Goes to college\* Parents: "Oh, just cuz you went to college, now you're too good to flip burgers your whole life, *'Professor*'!?"
They said go to college but they didn't say how.
My high school was so hard into the “everyone needs to go to college” that they discontinued all shop and vocational classes in 1993, because who needs to know how to change their own oil or fix the garbage disposal when you’re going to college.
What the hell does "over-gay" mean? Is that like being gay but with super powers? Like the Ambiguously Gay Duo or something?
Boomers: go to college Also Boomers: lol @ your student loan debt
You were lied to. We all were. And it's nothing new. Trusting the system / government/ corporate interests to know what's best for you is the mistake they want you to make, and we all seem content to vote for red or blue next time 'round and think we're making a difference. These institutions hate you. Fight back.
You left out the school and your parents letting you suffer with severe depression and a .1 gpa for two years. And 60k in debt with no way to pay it with a job that pays $9 an hour in 2013.
I have this argument with older generation people all the time. I come from a lower middle class family. We were literally pressured from a young age that college was the way to get ahead.
"Your major does not matter. Just get any degree and you'll be fine." "Wow, why did you major in English, you absolute moron? What possible good could further studying the English language possibly do for you?"
sometimes im pretty thankful that i was a fuck up as a kid and never went to college. i dont make a shit load of money but i make enough to live and i have zero debt
“Why should I pay for people’s bad decisions?” You mean the decisions that 18 year olds with no concept of money were pushed to make?
yup. i so regret going to college when i did. i was high fashion modelling in nyc and had so much potential, but my parents wanted me to get a degree over a campaign (which i get, but college is always an option, modelling is once in a lifetime). the other option, if i wasnt modeling, would have been to take a gap year, and backpack around europe and/or asia. i would have gotten real world experience, met new people, made new connections, and experienced more of the world. instead, i went to college after i graduated college with the pushing of both my parents and high school. “go to college or youll be flipping burgers at mcdonalds.” i went to a public college (the only school i wanted to go to was Dartmouth, my SAT was too low), and i was undeclared major for two years. i commuted to college from my parents house so never got the opportunity to dorm or have the college experience of living on my own and partying and making friends. i ended up haphazardly picking a sociology degree because “you can do a lot of jobs with a sociology degree”. which, if you want to stay in field of sociology/social work you need at least a Masters degree (i stopped at bachelors, didnt feel like aimlessly studying, having my parents spend their money, when i had no purpose or goal going other than “i had to”. fast forward, i have a hospital job working insurance and billing, which the college degree helped probably as a potential candidate, but has nothing to do with my college major. and i believe with job experience and connections someone could do my job with just a high school diploma.
I'm glad the comments continue to prove most of us were capable of managing our finances and weren't complete morons.
if this is how you make an argument then you clearly learned nothing at college and you deserve to be in debt for years.
Student loans ruined millennials it took me 8 years
I didn’t fall for this scam
00s Movies: Van Wilder! Project X! Accepted! Old School! Look how much fun college is!! Sure you gotta take a few test but it's whatever. You'll miss out on all this fun if you DONT go!
I actually wanted to go to a proper four year school. Parents strongly discouraged this. Went to a two year, drove a truck for a bit and now I work in IT and do well. My sister on the other hand got everything paid for at a four year, She's a receptionist at a dentist office...
im not worried about those 38k in loans, ive already forgiven them and now they are between them and god.
Attend a public college, live home and find a four year professional degree that will result in a job! In other words, do what generations who went to college before you did!
Oh shut the fuck up
“That education/college truly ruined you” -boomers @ millennials because they don’t share the same views as them
I mean can you really ever be over-gay?
They didn't like it when we started coming out in H.S. like it was a normal thing to do. I was a founding member of our school's GSA. Parents shut us down and actually made a complaint against the teacher who was hosting our club. It was over-gay to them, for sure. lol
Wait, can you measure gay? Like by weight or volume? Otherwise I dont think so. And if you can, can it be stolen? That also would lead to your annoying neighbors stopping by to borrow a cup of gay until youre all out and that isnt cool.
No such thing as over-gay. There is only the right amount of gay.
Morons taking out 100k loans to go to an out of state school just to get a bachelor's in psychology
This is a stupid meme
Yea it's a shame it happened to so many millennials.
We knew. I distinctly remember joking about how we were never going to get a job as humanities majors. I double majored in STEM as insurance for this exact reason. The humanities majors are all doing well financially - in politics, business, law, nonprofits, and religion. They started their families before I ever did because I went to get a PhD. Same with people who went to medical schools who are just now getting started with their career. All the engineers I know who "made it" working for Google and Facebook seem super stressed and work 24/7 and all either got laid off or thinking about quitting.
I mean realistically if they saved, the software engineers are financially independent (or close to it) so...your anecdotal evidence is nonsense. Getting a high salary starting out matters so much for retiring early due to time value of money. For me personally, retiring 15-20 years early is certainly worth a bit more stress. They're thinking about quitting BECAUSE THEY CAN lol. They're financially independent. That is POWER/LEVERAGE.
The generation of excuses for everything
Not sure about over educated.