Nymeria on 06 July 2017
| Wiibaron said: Work your way through college used to be a 'thing' . We had shitty cars, lived either at home or with 4 roommates in a 2 bedroom apt, and ate Mac n chez a lot. No Xbox or 100/month phone and drinking Pabst or Red Stripe beer. And at the end of college you owed maybe 3ooo or so. Millennials demand comforts and unnecessaries or they melt. Well, they can slowly pay their debt that is their responsibility by frugalizing their lifestyle like every gen before them. We just did it during college, not after. |
Adjusted for inflation a degree cost several times what it did in the past. In 1982 one could get a public four year degree for $9,600 in 2016 dollars without board, that same degree in 2016 would be $38,400 without board.
At the same time minimum wage in 1982 equates to $9/hour in 2016 dollars, it is currently at $7.25/hour.
In 1982 a person making minimum wage needed to work 1,067 hours to pay for college, in 2016 they would need to work 5,296 hours.
I get bashing the next generation is a tradition, but there are new realities about the cost of education and stagnate wages that have contributed massively to the debt problem.
