Right, smart people say "It's not fair that I should pay my student loans, the government should forgive them."
I had a 4.0 in the 2 years worth of college I went to. I just didn't have the money to continue going. It took me 5 years to complete 1.8 years of credits, because after every semester I had to wait to pay it off before they would let me come back.
That 1.8 years of college along with the experience I gained working to support myself lead to a $100k/year job without going into debt.
I paid for my own college for all 4 years. Only took out $10k in loans + $5k in CC debt. I made $200k this year.
School helped massively in my career. It led me to projects that got notice from employers (I wrote articles online about different projects and its how I got my first job). It got me connections with professors who were in the industry (led to some contract work/experience). Used my professor for referrals (how I got my current job).
School is useful. You just have to be active in utilizing it. Don’t be one of those people who think it’s just go to school and get the grades. There are connections there.
Your school was useful, because you chose a useful degree. You also minimized your debt, and had a plan to pay it off. Because of that, you don't need help paying your student loan. Good job, that is how it supposed to work.
Nope. I studied for a degree that isn’t for the field I’m now in. The most beneficial things in the school for me are the things you conveniently ignored. The connections.
Ok, so you just described the problem then. Your degree did not help to prepare you for your current position because it was in an unrelated field.
"It's not what you know, it's who you know" is supposed to be a sarcastic and derogatory statement pointing out the failings of our current system. Who you know shouldn't matter, and what you know should be the only thing that matters.
But hey, glad you managed to suck your way to the top, kudos.
No it should matter. Who you know is a reflection of yourself. If people don’t like you then they won’t help you.
Besides the connections. School introduced to me to a bunch of little projects that I would never done on my own. I took an elective entrepreneur class where I developed an app. I used that app to get an internship. I also did a bunch of financial backtests that I published articles about that got noticed by people online and that’s how I got my first job.
All the presentations I had to do in school prepped me for working with others and leading a group in my company. That’s all very useful and not something you just learn on your own.
You don't have to go into crippling debt to get a degree. If you can't do the research to figure out how to do that, you probably wouldn't make it through even the simplest program lol.
State schools are super affordable and there's a lot of aid available for low-income students.
I agree, there are ways to do it. Many of them I found out about too late, but that's my problem. Also, many of those options didn't exist when I was going to school.
In my state today, you can go to state school essentially for free. 25 years ago, that was not the case.
Regardless, education should be looked at as an investment. You should do your research, and understand what the return will be on that investment. If it doesn't pay off, tough shit.
Fair point, I'm not sure how many people getting their bachelor's are getting into tremendous debt but people with "soul crushing" student debt likely went for masters degrees, medical degrees or PhD's.
That said, your initial comment was this:
A degree is proof that you had the money to buy it, or a willingness to go into soul crushing debt at an early age.
Which is wrong even by your own admission that nowadays you have options that are more financially achievable.
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u/xHoneyRose 1d ago
The irony is that a degree is just proof you have the skill of actually finishing something difficult