[zbentley]

I'm somewhat sympathetic to this position, but that's an unnecessarily extreme way of stating it. "Reasonable" is a weasel word. If I study for 4 years for a job in a lucrative, degree-requiring field with very high jobs demand when I matriculate, and I go into debt to study, is that "reasonable"? What if that field encounters a sea change on the year I graduate, or the economy crashes, leaving me with bleak prospects and debt? Does that make what I did "wishful thinking"?

It seems like that argument easily ends up in the "educations that require significant debt are always useless" position, which is false. Like, sure, it's easy to make fun of literature students who end up $200k in the whole with no marketable skills and no job prospects. But they are just a small fraction of the whole picture. A higher ed degree is by far the highest-chance-of-success way for a lot of people to make it financially (whether or not it should be is a separate discussion), and a lot of positions require degrees for good reasons.

[lerpa]

> It seems like that argument easily ends up in the "educations that require significant debt are always useless" position, which is false.

That's not my position.

> "Reasonable" is a weasel word.

You can have a reasonable definition of what is reasonable ;-) It just has to do with the ammount of risk you're willing to take, yes, it involves personal risk.

But you can see, for example, in such and such people that get a degree are >70% unemployed or working in a different area that has nothing to do with it. Then well perhaps it's not a good choice if I don't have the liberty to do it just for the sake of it, without expecting money in return.

Some other career choices probably have better expected outcomes for the average Joe. So maybe if you need the money, chose that.

The bottom line is: it's just silly to live as if you were rich and but then after complain you don't have the money for it.