The issue is will reality cause these folks to develop a more mature perspective on life... or to fossilize like say Bernie or Elizabeth?
Cost of living (especially education) is higher than ever, and wages haven't kept up.
My generation (X) was the last one where someone could support themselves and work their way through college...now due to housing and tuition costs and low wages, a kid would have to work 60 hours a week to afford those things, which obviously means they can't also attend classes or do the homework.
Of course, most people assume what worked for them will work for others even though it is no longer the case.
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compared with the millenials with gender studies, and African studies, and art history degrees. Something tells me the engineers are doing fine, and the business majors are close behind.
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E.g., If my kid likes science, I would guide them into electrical engineering or chemical engineering or mechanical engineering, and away from physics and chemistry. They can pursue their interests and be employable at the same time.
Exceptions would be computer science and data science.
Anything around cybersecurity is huge now and the grads coming out in the Wash DC area are naming their starting salaries.....our company can't find enough of them
It is a great time for college grads if you chose your major wisely. Otherwise it's off to law school or MBA school you go!
If you waste your money on a meaningless degree....well you get what you pay for
We cant find enough engineers, IT types, cybersecurity....
There are still plenty of state schools that are COMPLETELY AFFORDABLE
Tuition at UGA is less than $5k/year and it is a very good school
You dont have to go to a private snob school....especially if you are going to take some joke of a major
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I don't consider that a real "disagreement". If I had your experience, I'd likely agree with your perspective and assume vice versa...
What kind of engineering work do you do?
I am very likely about to take on a new role around Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to make domestic manufacturing smarter and thusly more competitive in the global market. I have mixed feelings about this, but it is inevitable.
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...they effectively drove up the cost of education at 3-4 times the inflation rate every year.
I always think of that when people ask me to let the government help out in other areas, like medical care.
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Mucking around with market forces is dicey.
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Link: https://youtu.be/Uo0KjdDJr1c
Nobody is forced to go to college and/or take on large sums of debt. There are any number of ways to pursue a degree without taking on big debt. They aren't victims, and they have choices.
We have generational low interest rates with generational low unemployment. Today's millennials inherited a fantastic set of economic conditions.
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Seriously, why do people do that?
I have been frowned at by friends when I told them that I've made it clear to my kids that I will only pay for a degree that will get them a job. Interestingly, all my kids go for either engineering or business. None of them go with gender studies or art history or sociology. Imagine that.
Vanderbilt has a great education program, I'm told. If someone takes out loans to pay for that, they are fools, and should not be educating our children.
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If your choice is limited to (1) going into debt to get a trophy degree that won't help you pay off the debt (e.g., because it is your life long dream to pursuing your interest in gender studies, and people told you that you should follow your dream no matter what), or (2) getting a low paying job without going into debt and living a solid life contributing to society (pursuing your gender studies interest in your free time on the internet), maybe option 2 is the best option...just maybe.
But, if you want employment after you graduate college, then engineering is the best option.
It’s still a practical major though.
Here’s yer problem. The vast majority of peeps don’t want engineering, Bus Ad, or one of the non practical majors.
They want tech training, IT training, career training, or trades training. They want to be able to raise a family at a decent wage without being the wolf of Wall Street or designing a new bridge or product.
Look at Germany's system:
-- a primary school that begins at age six and lasts four years (five or six in some places)
-- a secondary level that generally starts at age 11 (grade 5) and is divided into
-- -- a less academic Hauptschule (to grade 10) leading to vocational education,
-- -- an intermediate Realschule leading to a technical or business school, and
-- -- the academically oriented Gymnasium that leads to the Abitur or Matura diploma and a university education.
(I didn't remember all of that. I'm copying from a site I found to accurately describe that: https://www.german-way.com/history-and-culture/education/.)
30-35% of high schoolers go to university in Germany. In the US, it is 70% (per BLS.gov stats). More Germans pick up a trade. In the US, so many eschew a good trade, and they try to go to college for a year or two, and then they end up working retail saddled with debt. Frickin' get some training as a welder, don't get into debt, make some serious cash, and live a solid life. One of our friends' kids is studying to be a mechanic, and it almost felt like they were apologizing when they told us. I thought it was awesome...he knew college wasn't for him, and he was unabashedly pursuing something he enjoys (he had always been a tinkerer with cars, loved racing, etc.). A lesser man would have sought something he didn't want or would fail at, just because of counterproductive societal expectations.
In Germany, after high school, you can get an internship. My company hired a student to a 9 month internship in Germany, and after 9 months, she didn't have to go to college. We liked her, and wanted her full time, and she could handle low-level project management with the on-the-job training she received from us (and given her aptitude, she can rise...without spending thousands of dollars studying Mexican Murals of the 18th Century and other unnecessary courses US college students take that irrelevant to any job they may take...she just studied what it took to do her job well for 9 straight months). In the US, I think it is more difficult for a high school grad to enter the work force like that...and there is stigma here to that, whereas there is less stigma there. In Germany, she was just another valued member of the team.
It's utter and complete bullshit. Do not follow your f'ing heart. Get a job. I would like to tell these people...
The cost must be weighed.
If one of my kids wanted to be a teacher, I would not send them to Vanderbilt. I would send them to the directional state school with the best education program. It's just common sense. They can have their dream without the debt.
A Notre Dame Gender Studies or [Insert Race] Studies degree, on the other hand, is a great way to get into debt and be nearly unemployable.
These have grown tremendously.
The good paying formerly blue collar jobs are gone.
Why we have Bernie, the AOC idjit, and Orange.
A very small minority are being paid a lot more, but I'm not sure that "what this economy is based on." Don't you think that centrally managed economies have worse disparities between rich and poor?
However, the poor in centrally controlled economies have always been far far far worse off than those in countries that foster free enterprise. Our non-union auto workers in the South have one of the highest standards of living of today's workers anywhere on this planet. They care more about that than what their managers of stockholders of their employers make.
The problem becomes when those jobs don’t pay such a wage then there is much more concern about the pay of management and stockholders.
We have many more in that situation than those non union auto workers you allude to.