[slics]

You forgot one big reward with your approach. You are not 200k in debt which will take that kid with diploma to get that piece of paper. You are debt free.

I am not arguing on the merit of having a diploma is a bad thing - the colleges these days have turned their backs on the people as well.

Average $100k to get a piece of paper (LLMs are not the issue here the useless degrees that the colleges offer). Invest that $100k at an average 15% return - it becomes a lot of money 25 years from now.

Or get a piece of paper (if your major is useless) and pay the banks 100k + interest.

[microtonal]

That’s a very American point of view though. In many European countries people don’t build up such big debts. I’m from NL and the upper bound among my friends was something like 50,000, but most people had much lower debts between 0 and 20,000. (Yay for lower enrollment fees + part of the money is given as a gift).

And even if you ramped up a 50k debt, it’s a government loan where the interest rates are low, your monthly pay off is based on your salary, and if you are not able to pay the debt within a certain period, it’s wiped away.

[grumbelbart2]

While you are fully right, that is very US-centric. Tuition is practically free in large parts of Europe, for example.