How America's universities became debt factories

The median student that graduated from college starting in 2009 had more debt than what they started with after 12 years and it's only gotten worse.

So your belief that it will cover the most egregious is not true for the median student. Given that, I'm also interested in how those lifetime earnings increases are distributed across degrees.

It’s funny. That everybody is mad at the banks and schools. But the politicians and do good laws passed are what caused all of this.

Banks did it want to give loans out for shitty degrees to people who would probably not pay them back. So laws were passed to force banks they had to give out loans.

Schools did not want to accept everybody, but only the top of class. But laws were passed forcing them to widen their acceptance criteria.

This creates the perfect storm we are in.

Before the system was self limiting. Banks only gave out loans for degrees and to people who had high probability to pay back. Schools accepted only the best students who had a high probability of succeeding.

The loans were low risk, high reward, and the schools were able to provide a higher level of overall education to those who did go.

Most states in the US already have public university systems, but that isn't where most of the debt comes from.

Everyone wants to go to Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, etc.

I had paid for university almost entirely out-of-pocket with earnings from co-operative internships in software; when "real-life" problems started to rear their ugly head, the choice came down to incurring debt or working in a (still to this day) lucrative industry.

What was the point? Why join the rat race of my peers who would rush through the material, only for it to be forgotten amidst the torrent of next semester's information? Does this style of studying actually produce a level of erudition equal to or greater than one who obsessively pores over the literature at their own pace, taking their time to slowly digest and process and crystallize the information in their mind? Or have they just found the most expedient route past the gatekeepers of higher education and diplomas?

I would much rather do exactly what I did in university - read through the material on my own terms and take time to digest it at my own pace, but without the crippling debt. That said, I still very much view education as a privilege, open to those of financial means, who have the opportunity to put aside several years' worth of earnings and time to pursue academic studies, irrespective of practical application. I am reminded of a second-year philosophy professor who took half a lecture to explain how the purpose of higher education is not as a vocational school to bring one wealth and employment (taking shots perhaps at the career focus of the institution's co-operative program), but rather to give one a more fulsome perspective of the world and enrich their intellectual life - not in hopes of some mundane, worldly reward, but for its own sake.

Had I the wealth, I would love to go back to complete a degree, not for practical employment prospects or even prestige, but to (at least attempt to) feel intellectually whole. A merit based system of standardized testing that awards degrees based on examination performance would be right up my alley, for I could prepare myself to meet its demands at my own pace and according to my terms; I consider the hacker spirit of measuring the quality of a software solution not according to the attributes of its author (wealth, status, degree, or otherwise), but on whether or not the code works correctly and efficiently adjacent to this sentiment. For everyone else, there's debt - and I can't justify making that decision.