Name:   Talullahhound - Subject:   A house or a mideval poetry degree? Date:   5/25/2016 11:15:38 PM

Now Shortbus, where do find these articles?  Yes, college is ridiculously expensive, but academic scolarships have also increased.  And your article fails to mention that a lot of students take their student loans, not for school, but for life expenses.  My niece will attend Rider University this Fall.  The tuition is $35K, but she has $21K in academic scolarships for all 4 years.  And her parents will pay the rest. 

But we have created the expectation now that everyone will attend college.  Most parents would not encourage their offspring to pursue a trade.  That is now considered "beneath them".  I do agree that a trained tradesman would likely earn more over a lifetime than someone with a degree in theatre arts, black studies, or even history.  We, as a society, need to get over this idea that it is somehow demeaning to work with your hands.  Most kids no longer can graduate in 4 years, because the colleges are so overcrowded.  Or they find a major that will require at least a Masters degree to even get an entry level job.  (Think Marine biology, psychology, sociology) 

And what about the parents that fail to plan to pay for their kid's education?  I know of a lot of kids that manage to graduate debt free, because their parents started putting away money the day the kid was born, so that their kids had the money to attend college without going into debt.

So there is no grand conspiracy theory on the part of the government.  What there is, is a failure to plan, an unrealist expectation that everyone should go to college, and students who think college loans are a way to finance a lifestyle.   I see there is no "indoctrination"  on the the part of the government, just an imposed expectation that everyone should go to college.

But I do agree that the government should get out of the loan business.  Let these kids get private loans, let their parents plan for their education, let them work their way through college, instead of taking out so many loans.