I just graduated with my CS degree this May, and I only took on a total of 20k debt and lived on campus, and that 20k was just the stafford loans that 3 of my scholarships mandated I take in order to qualify. Note, now that I graduated, I already paid off over half that on just reserve funds from summer jobs that I have had dating back to High School.
While I was there, only about 1 in 5 students actually had a full financial aid package. Most of them didn't fill out FAFSAs, or didn't even use subsidized stafford loans - they had direct bank loans from their parents for upwards of $60k a year.
In my opinion, the people of the 22ed century will look back and think we were hilariously dumb. We have instantanous communication of ideas and knowledge via the internet, and our internet speeds are only getting better. If you want to learn something, it is easier than ever to find a community of fellow learners for a subject, find tons of free learning materials on that subject, and buckle down without the financial obligations and classroom environment (which doesn't work for everyone, and you inherently have less engagement there because one teacher can not effectively engage with even just 10 people all the time).
Like the article said, the degree is the problem. But I don't think thats the real problem - moreso the problem than that is the inability for individuals to have ideas and persue them in business ventures, because upstart small business will demand much less degree knowledge from employees (even if they are very skilled) since they draw from a local pool.
You get the degree because you will be applying to massive companies with huge HR that don't want to try to interpret you as a person but want to get a quick diagnostic of if you are capable or not from a one word answer to a 3 word question: Got a degree? If hiring was more based on individual accomplishment and demonstratable knowledge rather than paper, we would all be better off for it by getting off the degree treadmill.
While I was there, only about 1 in 5 students actually had a full financial aid package. Most of them didn't fill out FAFSAs, or didn't even use subsidized stafford loans - they had direct bank loans from their parents for upwards of $60k a year.
In my opinion, the people of the 22ed century will look back and think we were hilariously dumb. We have instantanous communication of ideas and knowledge via the internet, and our internet speeds are only getting better. If you want to learn something, it is easier than ever to find a community of fellow learners for a subject, find tons of free learning materials on that subject, and buckle down without the financial obligations and classroom environment (which doesn't work for everyone, and you inherently have less engagement there because one teacher can not effectively engage with even just 10 people all the time).
Like the article said, the degree is the problem. But I don't think thats the real problem - moreso the problem than that is the inability for individuals to have ideas and persue them in business ventures, because upstart small business will demand much less degree knowledge from employees (even if they are very skilled) since they draw from a local pool.
You get the degree because you will be applying to massive companies with huge HR that don't want to try to interpret you as a person but want to get a quick diagnostic of if you are capable or not from a one word answer to a 3 word question: Got a degree? If hiring was more based on individual accomplishment and demonstratable knowledge rather than paper, we would all be better off for it by getting off the degree treadmill.