Dang, I'm away from the forum for 2 days and miss some interesting things.
But I thought I'd toss my
into the student loan, 'gimme free stuff' discussion.
Personally, I think Americans have been sold a 'bill of goods' when it comes to college, not everyone needs a degree; there is still a need for people to dig ditches and do things that don't require a degree.
I agree with Lein, as far as the 'most kids in high school don't know what they want to do'. I didn't have a clue, and at the time, there weren't too many good jobs in KC, so I joined the military. I figured I do 4 years, learn a skill and figure it out from there. Well, the 4 became 20, and not only did I learn a skill (besides killing people at long distance
), I found out what I was good at. The challenge then became: what company can I work for. It took awhile to get to where I'm at now; lots of crappy jobs for low pay, bills out the wazoo, kids, broke-azz cars, horrible places to live, and finally, a divorce from someone that wanted the trappings, but didn't want to help with the cost.
My biggest pet peeve through all this was the comment 'you have to pay your dues'....
MF, I paid my dues. While your narrow azz was going to school, getting established, I was in some God-forsaken piece of shite country, doing what no one else wanted to do, wondering if I was going to make it home in one piece.
The folks I worked with learned real fast not to make that statement around me, I'd be pissed for days.
Bottom line, I have absolutely no effin' sympathy for anyone that goes to college, gets a 'liberal arts' degree (WTF is that any way? Sounds like a 'participation degree' to me), incurs 100k in debt, then whines because all they can get is a job at MickeyD's... I got my degrees AFTER I got out of the military, then it was mostly an exercise in 'ticket punching'. I had the knowledge, I just need the paper that proved it... (really?!!) I incurred some student loan debt, but I'm down to about 5k now, with a 1.25% rate, it's easy to double up payments. But I also had my associates degree paid for by way of scholarships (I waited too long to go back to school, so I wasted my GI Bill
)
/rant