There’s plenty of blame to go around in regards to the mess which is higher education. I don’t know if it’s the fault of the companies so much as more and more people were getting degrees they began using that as a means of filtering out resumes. Much of the blame is on society for not waking up to the fact that much of the time, coursework, and money spent in higher education (high school & college) is a waste for most people.
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My point is that the money spent on a college education might be considered an investment that sometimes goes bad, but its not a waste. Access to jobs is the product that the money is spent on. It might be better to look at that access as a speculative investment. But it can’t be seen as a waste on the part of the student.
How many of those same music majors end up in middle management positions that require a degree (any degree).
Viewed as a way to know lots about music, college might be seen as a waste of money. Viewed as a paywall to white collar jobs, college can’t be seen as a waste of money.
I can tell you this as someone who worked in a high school and has known plenty of people in education, that when it comes to hiring non math/science teachers the schools are inundated with resumes. So if that’s any indication I would say not many of them are working as middle managers.
Essentially they already did that by taking over all student loans under the Obama Administration.
Don’t you remember when the dem’s were grilling the big banks about student loan debt before a committee when they finally had to inform I think it was Watters that the Fed’s had taken over the industry several years prior? 
Samm
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If you don’t profit by going to college, it is a bad investment … no, ifs, ands, or buts.
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What happened to the people paying it themselves? I am sure I am not alone back in the late 90’s when I went to college it took me five years to graduate because I worked at a department store from 9-5 and took 4 night classes each week and worked as a server at a restaurant ever chance I got on the weekends. I went to community college and managed to get 90 hours that was transferable to a state college then took a loan for 1/2 of the amount to finish the last year and a half and was able to go into the banking and fund manager field in which I owed only $8,000 and paid it back in a year.
It seems these days I hear way to many stories of kids going to expensive schools, not working the whole time, while taking out the maximum loan amount. I remember working with a few of these people in my first job out of college and them telling me they had more money during their time in college than they did working full time out of school. Were are the parents and counselors? What advice are they giving these kids.
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Oh there’s no confusion here - you shifted your argument from “I did it - they should too” which is a bad argument; to “Honoring contractual commitments is a hallmark of a fair and just society,” which is a good argument.
I still don’t think it’s sunk in yet that I really don’t favor loan forgiveness especially when couched as stimulus. It’s bad policy.
It looks like we do agree that by and large what many students are paying for is a piece of paper, albeit with one’s name on it in fancy writing. 
They chose that burden, just as many of us did. Working class citizens shouldn’t be forced to pay for those choices.
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Samm
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I have multiple arguments as to why they should pay their own debt … all of them valid. But “I did it - they should too” was never one of them. I paid for my own college education by working my way through, without incurring any debt.
At the school I taught at (middle-upper middleclass) so many students simply wanted to go away for college out of state, which is tremendously more expensive. How we got here though goes back to the 1970’s and has a number of factors, which there have been thoroughly researched (in other words can’t give all the explanation here). One of the factors is how the educational industrial complex convinced Americans that by sitting in classrooms and listening to lectures one can be transformed into an “Intellectual” (clearly I’m using hyperbole), and that such intellectuals than would be “worthy” to work in a white collar job. There was a big movement by parents and their children that involved a psychological aversion of blue collar jobs. I mean do you really want to be a plumber, a grease monkey, a welder, etc? So with that mindset there has essentially been no limit to what people would be willing to pay. I know kids who were going to be paying over $80,000/year for their degree! That’s more than the cost of a ■■■■■■■ house in most of the expensive states!
If 20 years ago colleges were forced to cosign student loans and hence be on the hook if their customers couldn’t get a job and pay them back we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.
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Samm
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Going to college has never been a guarantee of a job. But in a sense, you are right. Universities have been seriously complicit in inventing degrees that the job market does not value.
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The even more unfortunate fact is that not only do so many students major in topics that are completely useless on a practical basis but that most of the stuff learned in college is largely a waste of time and money, even for those with more practical majors.
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J’Biden’s vote buying scheme produced the intended results. His “student loan pause extension” is total BS.
The lazy idioti that were foolish enough to lap up the swill fed to them will have to pay off their debts and be like those you mentioned in #1. And if they choose to be scofflaws their wages, income tax returns and “stimmy” type gimmies should be garnished.
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Samm
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A Masters in “Happiness Studies”? Gee, I wonder how that’s gunna work out for 'em. 
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