[huuhee3]

While the US system is particularly messed up, it's not that great in Europe either.

In my country universities get paid by the government based on number of graduates. Things like quality of education and employability matter very little. So, the end result is a system where many young people spend 5 years of their life on a masters degree that doesn't give them any monetary benefit. The university gets their money, the government gets fancy stats about level of education, but many students end up just misled and wasting their time.

Obviously this is better than graduating with massive debt, but it's still a major financial loss compared to working full time, or studying something employable. In my opinion, what we need is a change in mentality. People shouldn't tell their kids that it's okay to study just whatever you enjoy, at least not until you have some other means of earning a living you're happy with.