[zipiridu]

I've changed my mind on this a few times, but I think schools or creditors should have some duty to not give out loans of this magnitude to 17-year olds with little to no financial literacy. The same way that a bank would not give you a huge loan with bad credit. Schools should also be extremely upfront about this type of financial information.

[WalterBright]

These were Masters degree students, not 17 year olds. They had SIX years to type this into google:

   Starting salary for film degree

I would think an educated student would know how to use google? But I bet they actually did know this, and went ahead anyway, and now just want to blame others.

[imtringued]

A loan of that magnitude is a very sharp knife. Some people will injure themselves and it's inevitable. Some want people to injure themselves.

[echelon]

It's taking longer than I would have thought for this meme to soak in for the general public. I knew this back in college, but that was a bit ago...

There isn't a lot of room at the top in film (at least until the creator economy table flips Hollywood). Likewise, there aren't many paid positions for historians, philosophy professors, etc.

Kids need to understand that their top priority should be to understand the shape of the economy and how to make themselves a valuable, indispensable part of it. Doing this early affords much greater freedom and leisure later in life.

Basically, kids need to understand supply and demand for careers. If they don't, it greatly impacts their future stability and happiness.

[WalterBright]

In my time at Caltech, all the AY students knew that the job prospects were nil. They did double majors, one for fun, one for money.

This was long before Google.

The starting salaries for each major were common knowledge, too.

I don't buy that film students did not know this until after graduation.

[selimthegrim]

What about the CH students?

[WalterBright]

You mean Chemistry? They commanded the best offers at the time.

[selimthegrim]

That was emphatically not true when I graduated (2009)

[pingpongchef]

Bankruptcy should help with this but student loans are currently a special case