I do not see how I am ignoring the questionable return part. There is lots of data on which educational investments result in more stable cash flow vs less stable cash flow.
These same conversations were being had 20+ years ago when I was in college.
Technically, the term wasn't about money at the beginning, but I think by the 1990s and 2000s, when people started borrowing tens of thousands of dollars per year from federal taxpayers, it became more about the ROI.
> There is lots of data on which educational investments result in more stable cash flow vs less stable cash flow.
The whole point of the comment you replied to was that this data is now wrong, as capital has continued to rug pull industries however it benefits them. So, once again, people can analyze all the data and make the "correct" decision and then still wind up in 40k of debt and no good job prospects.
Yes, but $40k of debt amortized over 20 years is not disabling. Plenty of jobs, even towards the lowest wages offered in most metros (which is $15+) can still allow for one to make progress.
The point is going $160k in debt at a private or out of state school can disable you.
You will have to somehow live on the remaining $1700 you take home after taxes and loan payment in cities where the rent for really shitty studios is about that and they want you to make 3x the rent to live indoors.
It's possible that you like most people who are living off much more than the minimum have no idea how ridiculously hard it is at the bottom.
If a person is earning $15/hour for 20 of their prime years with no upward movement, then they should never have borrowed money to go to school.
They also shouldn’t be in Manhattan or Seattle or any other tier 1 city, there are plenty of cheaper cities with cheaper suburbs that pay $15+ per hour. There is also the military if one wants college without spending the cash.
A friend of mine got out of the military before we started working together. He is permanently partially disabled and most of the people he directly served with killed themselves because kicking down doors and shooting people is psychologically destructive.
Also present inductees will basically serve under a fascist dictator who wants to use the military to murder people.
That said the idea that poor people ought to move somewhere cheaper deserves attention.
1. Poor people who aren't literally homeless are the least mobile folks. They have difficulty moving in town because they can't come up with 3 months rent let alone money to move across the country and they are incredibly risk intolerant as they often can't afford for even one partner to be out of work for any length of time. Furthermore losing access to local resources might itself be calamitous. There is no replacing moms babysitting with paid for childcare.
2. Entanglements. People have connections, friendships, family, love interests. Without these people often fare worse.
3. Wages descend almost as fast as rent, job opportunities go down faster and most everything else stays about the same. Nobody invests 5000 and risks becoming a hobo in hopes of netting 150 a month in another minimim wage job in a shittier City.
4. Low wage jobs are in fact done by all sorts of people in all sorts of stages of their life and cities depend on those people to function. It's not clear how any tier one city should continue to function after all the people who should not be there leave
5. The idea hardly scales. People live where the jobs are now and those places are only cheaper now because they lack those economic opportunities.
These same conversations were being had 20+ years ago when I was in college.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_basket_weaving
Technically, the term wasn't about money at the beginning, but I think by the 1990s and 2000s, when people started borrowing tens of thousands of dollars per year from federal taxpayers, it became more about the ROI.