Believe it or not, there was a time in this country when if you went to college, you were virtually guaranteed a great career in the workforce. Moreover, the prospect of going to college may have been out of reach for many people until the federal government started providing subsidies for the general public to attend college. A lot of people thought that this was a great thing – however, they did not consider the long-term effects of such a move. This is not to say that college was astronomically out of reach for ordinary people because there was a time you could fund your college education if you either obtained a loan from your local bank or if you worked during the summer and saved your money so that you could pay for school in the fall and spring.
But ever since the U.S. Government has been subsiding college and universities, the cost has dramatically increased and is still increasing to this very day. That’s only half of the problem. The other side of this tarnished coin is that even though it currently cost you more to go to college today than what's it's ever been - millions of students upon graduation are stuck with college loans (which most people would’ve never had if they had to secure a conventional bank loan). Adding insult to injury, most college grads are severely underemployed; meaning that they ae working for far less than what they are worth according to their degree(s).
This is the problematic trifecta for the reason why college graduates are having the problems they are currently facing in socio-economic terms. The million-dollar question is: what commodity either maintains or increases in value the more everyone has access to it? And the answer to that question is not one. Secondly, the next million-dollar question is: why does the U.S. Government continuously allow colleges and universities to enroll people into degree plans that don't allow them to actually do what they went to college for in the first place? We all know people that have graduated from college that are well to do and are outright struggling to either obtain meaningful employment or employment that is paying them what they are actually worth.
What do I mean by that? What I mean is if you went to and graduated from college with a debt to the tune of $120,000 how do you justify the degree if you only make $40,000 to $70,000 per year; especially in today's market and economy of “shrinkflation”. You can't. Going to college is no longer akin to living American Dream; instead, it’s one of this country's greatest nightmares. Now there is some light at the end of the tunnel. I would recommend that if you decide to go to college, it should be for a Trade. Many people will back makeup on this.
Forget getting a degree as it's worthless because the employer for the most part is going to train you to do things, the way they want you to do them. Not from a textbook. Secondly, if you wish to go to a 4-year university the only major you should be applying for is a STEM (science, technology, engineering, & math) Major. This is the part where you tell your guidance counselors to shove that English Lit degree up their a**. That's why we have word processing programs like Microsoft Word, and most people don’t even read like that and if they can read most of them can’t even comprehend what they just read.
The praise here goes to colleges and not universities because they have more practical programs (Trades) that will allow you to prosper because you become “functional” or immediately useful to society. Meaning that you can actually do something. It's 2023, and I remember people used to have a sort of disdain for wanting to be Plummers, Electricians, and Welders back in the day. This country desperately needs these people now more than ever. Guess what if you haven't noticed, this world does not work without them and quite frankly - they probably make more than the person you're sitting next to right now.
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