[startupper]

Good comment. A recent article from businessweek talked about the 10 top employers favoured by new grads. Three of them were fed. agencies, one established accounting firm, google, etc. New grads crave job security, comfortable lifestyles, cars, houses and growing bank accounts. After racking up large student loans you can't blame them. And this would be a major impediment to them starting a business in general.

I think this article refers to maybe 0.05% of new grads.

[brezina]

Spot on. If you don't have rich parents you have to go into debt to attend private school. You HAVE to take the real job when you graduate.

I chose to be Joe State (@ motoko). I graduated in the black and was free to start a startup. I'm thinking it was a good decision. That and studying engineering. Thanks Dad.

[nostrademons]

"If you don't have rich parents you have to go into debt to attend private school."

That's not really true. Most top private school have really, really generous financial aid programs. And they give the money in outright grants instead of loans.

I come from a very middle-class family - father is a househusband, mother is a teacher. I went to Amherst College, which has a $40K/year sticker price. Amherst picked up more than 2/3 of my tuition in outright grants. It didn't cost me much more to attend than it would've at UMass (well, not quite true, I would've gotten a full ride at UMass, but it wasn't much more than the UMass sticker price). I ended up graduating with $4000 in loans, which I could pay back with internship earnings.

[steve]

I am beyond screwed.