One thing I notice, and it pops up in this thread, is the attitude of viewing labor in a negative light.
"You don't want to be flipping burgers, do you?" Is repeated over and over to put fear into young people. No, they say, I don't want to have to work hard (and trust me, fast food work is laborious) I want to live the good life (what ever that is). So, go to University and avoid the toil of "flipping burgers". Ah.
Then something happened. Those degrees were no longer the ticket aware from "flipping burgers". In fact, my generation found that viewing University having value by the single metric of no burger flipping was becoming less and less true. Why is this?
University costs more than it did a generation ago regardless of how you quantify it, yet more people are going because it is their golden ticket. For me, I went to a solid public university I could afford, with job and scholarship I graduated with zero debt. My peers? Not so much. They believed they'd make 50K right out at 22-23 and their 20, 40, 60K worth of debt be gone in few years. That did not happen. They needed money now and had no leverage due to debt collectors.
Yet, these "entitled" youth did not want to work flipping burgers. Can you blame them? Their whole life they were told it was beneath them and degree would avoid such a fate...yet here they were. Many had to flip burgers next to people who were actually better off financially due to lack of debt. Their parents viewed them as failures, and they felt like ones.
My point? There does need to be a re-assessment of quantifying education's value solely along earnings benefit. If you think simply having a degree is magic ticket to middle class assurance....those days are not here, and likely are gone. However, if you view that from a University setting you can benefit as a human being the equation changes. What value does being informed have? Having critical thinking have? Being exposed to various view points? How about financial planning?
I have done all right for myself, and I can say there was no direct correlation between my degree and my occupation. However, the tangential learning and skills I gained proved invaluable. Also, I never dismissed getting dirty and doing work myself (fixing a machine is not glamorous) when needed, I was never "above" doing anything and do not expect to be. I am grateful for my University days that improved my mind and made me a more complex individual. I will consent that young people now should have reasonable expectations of the world and plan accordingly (big thing, avoid as much debt as possible!)
Appreciate the thoughtful debate here, as to me this is the topic of my generation.
