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New Normal: Majority Of Unemployed Attended College

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Re: New Normal: Majority Of Unemployed Attended College

#4
post #2

Ugh, so depressing... go to college, rack up enormous amounts of debt, and hope to find a job so that you can start paying off the monthly minimums for the seemingly the rest of your life.

I know education is a common theme here on HN, and I always read articles like this. I still think education (esp. in US and UK) is ripe for entrepreneurial disruption, and I enjoy seeing what investors are doing in this space. The system is clearly broken, because incentives are out of proportion to costs.

Re: New Normal: Majority Of Unemployed Attended College

#6
post #4
post #2

Ugh, so depressing... go to college, rack up enormous amounts of debt, and hope to find a job so that you can start paying off the monthly minimums for the seemingly the rest of your life.

I know education is a common theme here on HN, and I always read articles like this. I still think education (esp. in US and UK) is ripe for entrepreneurial disruption, and I enjoy seeing what investors are doing in this space. The system is clearly broken, because incentives are out of proportion to costs.

I wouldn't be surprised if the system operated in the system's best interest, and not the student's. I only have anecdotal evidence, but from my own experience, the whole system was designed to keep you in the system for as long as possible.

This may have been exacerbated by stupid government targets to get, say, at least 50% of all pupils into university. And in at least some of those cases, you're only going because you're brainwashed into it.

Re: New Normal: Majority Of Unemployed Attended College

#7
post #4
post #2

Ugh, so depressing... go to college, rack up enormous amounts of debt, and hope to find a job so that you can start paying off the monthly minimums for the seemingly the rest of your life.

I know education is a common theme here on HN, and I always read articles like this. I still think education (esp. in US and UK) is ripe for entrepreneurial disruption, and I enjoy seeing what investors are doing in this space. The system is clearly broken, because incentives are out of proportion to costs.

Yep. Incentives always get out of whack when the government gets involved. It's what's happened to health care, retirement funding, mortgage financing, on and on and on.

When incentives aren't aligned with human nature, inefficiencies amplify and eventually break whichever system the government stepped in to fix.

Re: New Normal: Majority Of Unemployed Attended College

#9
post #2

Ugh, so depressing... go to college, rack up enormous amounts of debt, and hope to find a job so that you can start paying off the monthly minimums for the seemingly the rest of your life.

In certain fields the "go into debt to pay for an education which will help you get a good job" strategy works well. Unfortunately, governments and educational institutions have taken "college graduates earn X% more and have a Y% lower unemployment rate" statistics and pretended that they apply to all college graduates, regardless of their field.

Only a fool would think that a degree in underwater basket weaving would provide the same employment prospects as a degree in any of the STEM fields, but fools are precisely the target market for institutions providing such courses.

Re: New Normal: Majority Of Unemployed Attended College

#10
Education bubble is slowly deflating. Drawing analogies to housing bubble:

    People would "flip" their college education for a high-paying job

    Easy loans made it possible for everyone to participate

    Education prices inflated faster than core inflation, setting a higher hurdle for students

    There are fewer jobs at palatable salaries (various reasons)

    Now we have boatloads of students saddled with an education that they can't pay off 
You can be as nuanced as you wish (e.g. english major as subprime loan) but the aforementioned discussion is sufficient. I expect to see a sharp correction soon.
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