Student Loan Debt: The Old Are Eating the Young
by John Lawrence
It doesn't pay to be young any more or to be a student, at least a non-independent student stuck in a classroom where you run the risk of being murdered. That's not to say that you can't study independently which is an option these days. Most of the people that made great intellectual contributions were independent scholars. That being said, if you survive being shot at school, you can look forward to piling on an insane amount of student loan debt in college just to obtain an increasingly worthless piece of paper that amounts to a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.
We have gone from being a nation of employees to a nation of entrepreneurs. To be an entrepreneur you don't need a college diploma. Those steel mill employee jobs are not coming back. All the rust belt manufacturing jobs are not coming back. However, there are still many jobs out there for skilled trades people. But for these jobs you have to be an entrepreneur; you have to be self-employed. As long as there are houses and cars, there are skilled jobs taking care of such. Handymen can claim quite a bit of wages these days. They're just not employed by a big corporation any more. Employee benefits are not worth it. 401(k)s amount to just gambling in the stock market not a guaranteed pension.
Until the US becomes a nation where education is guaranteed as a right and paid for by the government, it's becoming increasingly obvious that a paid college education is a humungously bad deal. Better to acquire skills and study on your own and start your own business. The is what America is all about and is becoming more so. There are certain jobs that will require certification, but let the rich kids whose parents can actually pay for college take those jobs. There are a lot of millionaire plumbers our there. There are some billionaire pizza makers out there too.
For profit and even non-profit colleges prey on young people these days. They sell them a bill of goods and lead them down the garden path that a college degree is going to make them happy and prosperous. Instead the probability is that it will leave them under a ton of debt and depressed just as they start out in life. There are better paths to take, roads to go down that don't involve acquiring a huge load of debt.
Or you could go to Germany and get a free college education. Having to learn German would be a small price to pay. Broaden your horizons!
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