> It's easy to distinguish the worthless degrees from the valuable ones. Google the starting salaries of each major.
Agreed.
> If a person picks a useless major, the decision is on them.
Not just them. Their parents, the school, etc. There are so many "simple" things to know. Too many for them to always be obvious, even when they "obviously" should be.
A mistake that a million young students make is a mistake worth updating the educational system to handle better.
And as an objective practical matter, it is always on society. Society systematically loses masses of individual potential by not providing more guidance when it matters. (And perversely turning education into an easy loan factory, regardless of expected income, the opposite of good guidance.)
I picked my major entirely on my own. My parents didn't advise me about it, nor did the school.
I have been known to advise young people that their intended major was akin to taking a vow of poverty, and they all insisted they were following their dream, and are now working at minimum wage jobs.
I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for students who discover after they graduate that their chosen major has no value. How do they go through 4 years of college never checking such things? Google "starting salary for history majors", for example.
At Caltech, everyone knew that ChE paid the best, and AY degrees were worthless (this was long before google). The AY majors usually did a double major - AY for fun, and the other degree for money.
I would assume that students getting into competitive schools were more informed (whether or not that resulted in a good decision).
> I don't have a whole lot of sympathy
It is a big objective problem, for the students and society. So even without feelings, some kind of incentives need to be better aligned with reality.
Limiting student loan repayment terms, with a limited percentage of student income recoverable to banks, would certainly incentivize banks not to help students get in trouble.
Telling basket weaving majors that they are welcome to do it for love, but to expect to be paying for the degree themselves up front, or with an ongoing job, represents the desired outcome, in simplified terms.
It's a lot easier today with google to be informed than in my day. All the information needed is a couple of searches away.
In any case, and I know this isn't a popular thing to say, but when you're 18 it's time to take responsibility for your choices, and time to stop saying your choices are other peoples' fault.
> I know this isn't a popular thing to say, but when you're 18 it's time to take responsibility for your choices
I don’t think that’s unpopular or the least bit controversial. Obvious, no?
But ending the story there isn’t productive. So perhaps it is not a popular reason to not consider other factors & improvements.
Individual lack of conscientiousness isn’t the only factor.
Students being handed loans, for whatever ill thought out career plan, with no immediate need for payback, facilitated by market warping government encouragement, schools whose incentive is obvious (they get most of that money), and banks who see students as easy marketing targets, is a systematic upfront incentive/road to the original ill thought out career plan, but now saddled with overwhelming debt.
Such a colossal amount of economically mismatched careers and debt that the topic is a regular subject of national politics.
There is an entire system of active influence, causality, conflicts of interest & responsibility there too.
Society (and parents) still should have some responsibility on educating young people about career prospects of different degrees. Too many in older generations think any degree will land their children a job, and thus encourage them to study whatever they like.
I think school system is hugely failing students if they are not instructed and then capable of spending one or two afternoons on simply googling and looking at career prospects and what different jobs actually might entail. And then at least with minimal criticality thinking is that for them.
I am pretty sure there is no careers you cannot find some information on with rather simple searches.
This belief that "a degree, any degree" is sufficient must have started after I went to University (mid-90s), because when I was a teenager, it was drilled into us that we need to not only go to University, but we need to major in something lucrative. Nobody, from parents to guidance counsellors, was saying "Oh, just go to college and major in anything, it doesn't matter!"
As I mentioned before, there are no jobs for AY majors, even from Caltech. I don't suggest abolishing it. There were many AY majoring students, and they had open eyes about it. There wasn't any whining about it.
We have already dumbed college down so much to make it accessible to so many. The last thing we need to do is dumb it down further so that everybody can go. 17 years of education isn't really any better than 13. The only reason a college degree was ever worth anything was because it was taught at a high level that most people would never be able to pass.
If a person picks a useless major, the decision is on them.