[FranzFerdiNaN]

Everything you say proves your privilege. If you work a minimum wage job there is no way you can put aside 20k in a few years. Taking on student loans is necessary for many to even get a degree to have a chance at a decent job. And poor people usually are excellent at managing resources, yet you go "poor people just lack character", while what they lack is money, which is stolen by a small group of people at the top because they are a bunch of vampires sucking the life out of everything.

[Applejinx]

Pretty much. There comes a time when it seems hardly worth sugar-coating realities like that. The whole topic is inextricable from the engine constructed to make a few victorious entities, whether they're companies or individuals or both, successful to a degree that justifies their apparent importance.

Funny how that importance is never 'serving people the best way', and is always 'thousands of times more powerful and wealthy than you could even imagine and consuming the blood of young servants in order to live forever'. With some of the most successful Silicon Valley capitalists, the latter is literally true: consuming the blood of the young in hopes of living longer.

I'm not sure how much more on-the-nose it can even get. It's kind of nice to see these things openly talked about. It's legitimate to ask, "This is possible, indeed is happening. Is this good?"

[def_true_false]

Funny that you mention privilege. Most people in the US don't have a degree [1]. Are you saying none of those people have decent jobs? Never mind the people on this very website that work in tech without a degree, there are plenty of other jobs that require no degrees and are compensated quite well. [2] is a good read, despite the fact that it's a little out of date.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_...

[2] http://www.er-doctor.com/doctor_income.html

[closeparen]

There are over 300 million Americans. "None" could only ever be a hyperbolic strawman. But on balance, yes, those without a degree experience substantially higher unemployment and lower wages [0].

[0] https://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm

[def_true_false]

Good point. In many cases the higher wages are somewhat negated by the time investment though.

[pascalxus]

the point is, people spend far more than they have to on college education. The cheapest 4 year degrees are much cheaper than the average ones. And, if you're not shopping around based on price (most people seem not to be), most likely your doing yourself a disservice. Of course, it also depends on your career plans.

I myself, went to the cheapest college in my area, even though I could have gotten into a far more expensive/prestigious college. I chose not to because I knew it would put me a great economic disadvantage to have so much debt. Software engineering careers and many other careers don't always benefit from more prestigious schools.

If more people shopped for colleges based on price then maybe universities will start competing on price and we can finally see them planning ways to make college cheaper instead of adding yet another good for nothing expensive wing to the campus.