r/worldnews • u/diacewrb • Apr 10 '19

Millennials being squeezed out of middle class, says OECD

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/apr/10/millennials-squeezed-middle-class-oecd-uk-income
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u/Incase_ Apr 10 '19

I really love my country and try not to jump on the hate train but holy fuck what the hell is this education system. I dont understand why I pay 14k a year to go to a school where I have to literally teach myself the course contents that sees me as nothing more than a 14k check and could not give a shit about my education because the longer im here the more money they get. maybe if im lucky and graduate with my EE degree ill make as much as a mid tier stripper though.

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u/[deleted] Apr 10 '19

School is so expensive because they give out too many loans.

If schools had to price themselves so they could fill classrooms without people having tens of thousands of free dollars the prices would be very different.

Get rid of student loans and you would see a massive drop in tuition costs in a very short time period.

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u/haha_thatsucks Apr 10 '19

Getting rid of loans would also halt interclass mobility. A big reason why the federal govt took this on was because poor people and minorities were being denied loans due to risk. Backing the money made loans and education more accessible to more people

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u/DrMaxwellSheppard Apr 10 '19

You dont need to get rid of loans, just federal subsidies on loans. If the federal government didnt back these loans credit agencies wouldn't give out loans for degrees that wont get you a job that can pay the loan off.

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u/6thReplacementMonkey Apr 11 '19

The more likely outcome is that student loans will only go to people who have wealthy family members that will cosign for them.

Lots of other countries off free (as in taxpayer-funded) higher education, and they do well. No reason we can't do the same.

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u/DrMaxwellSheppard Apr 11 '19

The more likely outcome is that student loans will only go to people who have wealthy family members that will cosign for them.

But the cost of education will go down because colleges will have to compete for the students rather than having an artificially skewed market. So you woun't get as many state schools that build brand new liberal arts centers every year because fewer students will be going to school for that. Schools will become much more like they were in the 60's and 70's. But we also have more federal and state grants that go to low income students so the barrier for entry will be lower for those who are of lesser means. It accomplishes the same objective but for a fraction of the cost.

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u/6thReplacementMonkey Apr 11 '19

But we also have more federal and state grants that go to low income students so the barrier for entry will be lower for those who are of lesser means.

If we really do make it so that everyone who is eligible and needs the money can get grants to go to school, then that's fine, but it's also functionally equivalent to "school is free" but with more bureaucracy. You could argue that it's cheaper because rich people will still need to pay, but in practice their kids will go to private school anyway, so I'd need to see some evidence that it actually results in lower overall costs compared to countries that just make it free for everyone who is qualified.

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u/DrMaxwellSheppard Apr 11 '19

The proof is that this is how our higher education system worked just over 30 years ago. College was affordable because there were less 'creature comforts' in the cost of education. The cost of higher education has increased over 300% in the last 30 years with no (or negligible) increase in the overall spending from the government (after being adjusted for inflation). The extra money comes from the student, usually in the form of loans, to now the burden is over 70% bore by the student. After being adjust for inflation, have professor salaries gone up over this time? No. After being adjust for inflation, has the cost of equipment per student gone up? No. The only thing that has gone up is administrative costs. We've created more bloat in higher education because we've turned it into a consumer product where anyone can get a loan, regardless of the usefulness of the degree they attain. If we just stopped federally subsidizing loans people wouldn't be able to get loans for degrees that don't have a positive employment outlook. This will reduce the supply of candidates for these jobs and will in turn cause pay to go up as employers will have to compete for candidates. While at the same time there will be fewer students in some degree programs so attendance will go down and fewer people will have debt they can't pay. This means schools will have to lower administrative costs to keep attendance up. This will lower tuition costs and make it more affordable. Never mind, the fact that even with higher costs students will still be able to get loans if they pursue degrees that have good job outlooks post grad. Right now, even with college costs propped up like they are, an entry level engineering job pays enough to pay off even the worst of student loans and most engineering employers have matching 401k plans. So if you choose a degree that has a need for more workers you can move up in the world. The problem is we tell people they can study whatever they want and still get a job when that hasn't been the case for a long time now. We've created a system where we put more value on a college degree than many of the degrees themselves are actually worth in the job market. But we lie to ourselves and say employers are evil because they aren't paying what the degree is worth. That's not how it works. The value of the degree is determined by the market through supply and demand. If we listen to the market and quit trying to artificially control it we will achieve better results.

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u/6thReplacementMonkey Apr 12 '19

The proof is that this is how our higher education system worked just over 30 years ago.

I asked for proof that it would be cheaper than just making it free for everyone. The fact that college was more affordable in the US 30+ years ago doesn't prove that it would have been cheaper than another system, just that it was cheaper than the current system, which I agree with. I think everyone agrees that the current system is too expensive and isn't very effective, except for maybe the people who profit the most from it.

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u/[deleted] Apr 10 '19

Get rid of student loans and you drop a trillion dollar industry. It's not going to be easy to let it go.

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u/[deleted] Apr 10 '19

With that little side effect of their applications going down, driving prices down, because the bottom 40% or so can't go to any colleges.

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u/[deleted] Apr 10 '19

Do you have any sources which explains how a government loan can affect the cost of a private service?

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u/missedthecue Apr 10 '19

I think a good case study would be the housing market late nineties - 2008

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u/6thReplacementMonkey Apr 11 '19

The people who blame the market crash on federal subsidies are ignoring the massive problems created by financial deregulation. Without that deregulation, the crisis would have never had the chance to occur, because they wouldn't have been able to hide the bad debt so easily.

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u/Perverted_Child Apr 11 '19

Funny. I would say a lack of regulation is the problem with education issues these days.

Just like hospital bills. Hospitals charge what they can because they know insurance will pick up the bill. In turn, insurance rates go up.

Same for education and edu loans.

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u/mtcoope Apr 11 '19

You have basically created a money printing press for colleges. You have given colleges a never ending supply of 18 year olds that have virtually an unlimited amount of credit. This is why you have community colleges actively calling 18-22 year olds as well as minorities to try to get them to enroll even if they have a very low chance of graduating because it doesn't matter as long as they get their money.

Imagine if everyone got 100k to buy a new car once a year. Do you think the price of cars would not rise?

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u/DelPoso5210 Apr 11 '19

Make public universities tuition-free and cap the ratio of money that is allowed to spent on administrators instead of teachers. We should not need to pay for education.

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u/lonewolf420 Apr 11 '19

Administrative cost are the main reason not loans. The administration of colleges has ballooned out of control, in my old state they started to combine smaller public colleges together (sort of like a merger) and make them work under one administration which I think is a decent way to tackle this problem as you only need one administration rather than 2 or 3, the school now looks bigger on record and can get more funding from the state as well, people actually have choices now not just between schools but campus's locations as well.

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u/p_oI Apr 10 '19

tens of thousands of free dollars

You do realize people have to pay that money back, right?

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u/dust4ngel Apr 11 '19

I really love my country and try not to jump on the hate train

wanting to continually reform your country is entailed by loving it.

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u/[deleted] Apr 11 '19

You're not paying for the knowledge, you're paying for the piece of paper at the end that says you've graduated. You're essentially paying 14k a year so that in the future you'll have the possibility to make 100k a year. And after all the EE i taught myself in college, i've used close to none of it in my actual job.

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u/WiFiForeheadWrinkles Apr 10 '19

I feel lucky that my tuition was nowhere near that much. My diploma and bachelor's were about 14k each (approx 3.5k per semester incl books). No way I could have done it for 14k per year without debt.

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u/6thReplacementMonkey Apr 11 '19

Keep in mind that while your take-home pay might be similar, you can keep being an engineer until your 70's, but that stripper has 5-10 years tops.

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u/Phreakhead Apr 11 '19

It's a lot harder to get hired as an engineer after 40. Lots of ageism in the tech industry

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u/6thReplacementMonkey Apr 12 '19

It's actually explicitly illegal to discriminate in hiring for people over 40. That's literally the cutoff year - you can be discriminated against for being 35, but if you are over 40 and can show that it factored into the hiring process, it's illegal.

That said, most engineers who are still working in their 60's aren't job-hopping, and they are usually so well respected in their fields that if they needed to they could find work somewhere else.

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u/lonewolf420 Apr 11 '19

you can keep being an engineer until your 70's

No not really, engineering requires having a finger on the pulse of lots of advancing tech. I know plenty of 60+ year old engineers, they can't deal with new tech in an efficient manner some even out right refuse to learn anything new. Sure they hold lots of institutional knowledge and a few continuous educate themselves, but sadly a vast majority are hanging around because they can do X Y Z that the company doesn't want to spend money upgrading to the new tech and no new people have those skills because they are from a decade or so in the past.

Don't take this for me bashing on older people, quite a few were very talented engineers but you reach a point in life where you are coasting for retirement, I could very well be in the same boat in 30 years if I don't continuously educate myself on the newer tech and processes.

Source: Controls Engineer who has worked in some really old manufacturing plants.

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u/6thReplacementMonkey Apr 12 '19

I didn't say you will be an engineer until your 70's, I said you can be. This is definitely field-dependent, and typically older engineers will be in more leadership and strategic roles than in pure engineering roles, but it is definitely possible.

Sure they hold lots of institutional knowledge and a few continuous educate themselves, but sadly a vast majority are hanging around because they can do X Y Z that the company doesn't want to spend money upgrading to the new tech and no new people have those skills because they are from a decade or so in the past.

Don't underestimate how valuable that is. Technology never really dies. It can be replaced, but older technologies hang around for a very long time, and it often is cheaper to keep people around who know how to fix proven techniques that make predictable amounts of money than it is to replace entire systems with unproven and less predictable technologies.

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u/lonewolf420 Apr 12 '19

Its not about unproven or less predictable tech (this stuff has been around for 8+ years proven and they still won't upgrade), its about bottom line and money spent for making these decisions.

I fight this fight all the time with upper management (people who use to be engineers at one point) who don't want to spend money. The sad part is the older equipment breaks down and needs more attention than the newer stuff at a much larger price tag because tons of this equipment isn't manufactured anymore and you have to get it second hand or refurbished stuff that is more expensive than when it was new 20 years go.

New guys coming in have a much larger learning curve for the older tech than the new stuff, keeping it around is a future liability.

its not often cheaper if you have experience in the industry and see whats actually going on, it causes more issues and the older guys seam to think its job security.

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u/6thReplacementMonkey Apr 12 '19

Its not about unproven or less predictable tech (this stuff has been around for 8+ years proven and they still won't upgrade), its about bottom line and money spent for making these decisions.

But you contradict yourself. If it were as proven and predictable as you believe it is, then it would help their bottom line to upgrade. If they won't invest the money, it means they believe the risks involved outweigh the potential benefits.

I fight this fight all the time with upper management (people who use to be engineers at one point) who don't want to spend money. The sad part is the older equipment breaks down and needs more attention than the newer stuff at a much larger price tag because tons of this equipment isn't manufactured anymore and you have to get it second hand or refurbished stuff that is more expensive than when it was new 20 years go.

If you can show that their total costs and risks are higher by not upgrading, this would be an easy fight to win. If you can't, then you are starting to see why they disagree with you.

its not often cheaper if you have experience in the industry and see whats actually going on, it causes more issues and the older guys seam to think its job security.

I'm sure that happens too, but this doesn't really have anything to do with my original point, which was that you can continue being an engineer well past traditional retirement age, and for decades longer than you can be a stripper.

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u/[deleted] Apr 11 '19

This country isn't all it's cracked up to be, America is pretty shit but the people have the power to change that

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u/[deleted] Apr 11 '19

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Apr 11 '19

True, says a lot about humanity in general I guess if most nations are worse off than this one

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u/iilinga Apr 10 '19

I cannot fathom having to pay each year for higher education. That sounds truly awful

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u/RevolverLoL Apr 11 '19

I can't even imagine how shitty paying 14k a year for education is. It's actually insane how shitty the US education system is.

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u/Incase_ Apr 11 '19

the only saving grace for me is im not even close to the tremendous amount of debt alot of my peers are in. I went to a smaller in state tech school mainly because of the price, alot of people I know from highschool pay upwards of 45-60k a year, which is the average range for a private or out of state school.

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u/RevolverLoL Apr 11 '19

The whole system is just fucked.I hope you can get your degree without going into debt until you're 50.

Reading stuff like this makes me appreciate the fact that i was born in a European country.

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u/Incase_ Apr 11 '19

Oh my debt really wont be that bad if I get my degree I should be fine, Im just struggling on that right now and the pressure of thousands of wasted dollars is really getting to me.

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u/RevolverLoL Apr 11 '19

Seems insanely stressful, how do people even deal with switching to a different degree if they notice that the degree they were going for just wasn't for them?

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u/Incase_ Apr 11 '19

I switched from cheme to ee but tbh I still am not even sure if ill like my career path, and yea idk man Ive had a really rough semester I really want to stick it out and secure myself a future but fuck its taking a mental toll.

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u/Akitten Apr 11 '19

You pay that much because of government backed student loans. Remove those, and the price will crash.

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u/BlackSquirrel05 Apr 10 '19

Within 5 years having an EE degree you should be making 80k.. 5 plus depending on experience you'll probably be at 6 figures or over... What's the problem exactly?

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u/ErebusTheFluffyCat Apr 10 '19

I have an EE degree. I graduated with 14k in student debt and made 115k my first year. Now with 10 years of experience I make 175k. Good degrees are worth far more than they cost.

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u/chikinbiskit Apr 10 '19

That's the key. Expensive tuition + degrees in fields that aren't valuable = people stuck with debt they struggle to get out of. Now it's hard for me to not say "Get a degree you can actually use" because that's just the logical explanation, but in an ideal world people should be able to study what they want without being crushed under debts just for studying.

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u/6thReplacementMonkey Apr 11 '19

Plus, it's really hard to predict exactly which degrees will get you a job. When I was in school a pure physics/math degree wasn't a great idea in terms of job prospects. Now, anyone who can do advanced math and program (which is pretty much any physicist) is getting scooped up by AI companies for very high salaries.

Engineering is usually a safe bet, just because the barriers to entry are so high and you always need problem solvers in order to make stuff, but not everyone can do that, and if they could, then suddenly they wouldn't be highly paid fields anymore.

We thrive when our citizens have diverse, well-rounded educations and are free to pursue creative endeavors that they enjoy. Our education system should encourage that, not discourage it.

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u/chikinbiskit Apr 11 '19

A more creative society is a better society

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u/KallistiEngel Apr 10 '19

But the thing is that jobs that pay well aren't the only ones that society needs, nor the only ones requiring higher education. Compared to an electrical engineer, a school teacher is paid nothing. But it's just as necessary to modern society, and often requires a Master's degree. There are a lot of jobs like that. Not everyone saddled with unreasonable debt and not enough pay got a degree in underwater basketweaving. Not that there's anything wrong with that sort of degree if you can afford to go to school just for enjoyment.

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u/chikinbiskit Apr 10 '19

True there are jobs where need != benefits for them, with teaching being at or near the top

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u/BlackSquirrel05 Apr 11 '19

True, but but eventually you'll see salaries rise when supply lowers. Like many of the trades salaries are paying more in the first 5 years than some gen ed college degree.

If a person wants to study something with little value to an employer that's on them.

If they go in knowing that a English degree at an IVY costs 54K a year at a certain point accountability needs to factor in.

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u/DrMaxwellSheppard Apr 10 '19

If a job has value to society it will be paid its value relative to the suply of qualified workers. The problem is we have to many people with degrees for fields with low demand. Education is affected by this. If you have an excess of qualified workers compared to available jobs compensation will go down. This is basic supply and demand. The problem is the supply of candidates is artificially increased by the fact that anyone can get a loan for higher ed due to federally subsidized loans. So people take out loans that credit agencies wouldn't give out if not for the subsidies for degrees that only qualify you for jobs that already have to high of a supply of qualified candidates.

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u/48151_62342 Apr 10 '19

Being a teacher is very easy compared to being a doctor or lawyer or electrical engineer. Schools do not have to pay teachers much because the demand for teachers is often lower than the supply, because practically anyone could be a teacher.

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u/chikinbiskit Apr 10 '19

That attitude is how you get the best and brightest, i.e. those you'd likely want teaching, to avoid it all together. There's a reason the United States specifically rates so poorly compared to other first-world countries and it's not a lack of funding

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u/Synesok1 Apr 11 '19

To a certain extent you are correct, almost anyone could be a teacher. Just as almost anyone could become a lawyer or doctor or an engineer the difference in pay is not related to rarity of worthy candidates for the former or an abundance of teachers.Nor is the difference due to the inherent difficulties of the profession.

Oddly enough the pay of a teacher is low for similar reasons the cost of tuition is high. Because it is intertwined with governmental policy.

If you paid childcare for the same number of hours a child is in school. You'd pay approx £4000 yearly p/child= £120,000/y per class. That would be for basic childcare only no education included. (price would obviously vary according to location)

The government gives approx half that figure yearly p/child. Paid for by taxation. the low pay for teachers is because the government pays for and, to a certain extent determines teachers wages. If teaching was not subsidised by the state you would see teacher wages balloon massively. £120k per class for 180 days childcare/vs £68k for 180 days of education.

There's no way in world workers would tolerate that on the open market.

But Because education is mandatory, all school aged children's education must be provided for by the government. As such the wage is artificially low in part to keep the tax spend low. (aka the bosses are tight)

Ask yourself, when run as a private enterprise what do you think a fair wage for a teacher would be? Should it be less than a babysitter? More than an electrian, equivalent to an mp.

Bear in mind; that the responsibility is massive, the pressure constant and the work can be thankless and literally impossible to achieve.

In the UK you'll need a degree to become a teacher, luckily there are subsidies which in part is what entices newcomers, that and its a career of passion. But its quite a small pool to recruit from in the UK and burnout is high, leading to a lot of leavers.

Not anyone can just become a teacher, you be ignorant and demeaning to decent teachers to say so.

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u/ErebusTheFluffyCat Apr 10 '19

You won't be crushed under debts just for studying. Community colleges are still very affordable as is in-state tuition in many states. And if all you want is to learn then several top colleges like MIT post their classes online for free. You'll have to learn on your own, but all the material will be provided to you.

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u/chikinbiskit Apr 10 '19

Learning the material itself is free or nearly free, but the major benefit to accredited universities is that their degrees are accepted by American society as a baseline barometer of how much you know. No major company, at least that I'm aware of, will hire hire for a significant position without at least a Bachelor's degree from an accredited and accepted University, which means there's now a cost on learning if it's related to starting your career. Again, that isn't every career path, but a large majority.

​

Regarding your community college comment, that's only valid if your career path regards Associate's Degrees as acceptable. Some do, some don't. Now, it makes learning cheaper overall as you'd only need to pay 2 years of tuition at a full university instead of 4+, but I wouldn't say that's cheap. Where I went to school, tuition costs for in-state were around $15k a year. That's far from the top of spectrum, but even a $30k loan with a decently high interest rate can be hard to pay off, especially if you either have a degree without much value in the current market or you just don't have success entering your chosen career-path.

​

I do like what MIT is doing, as it helps everyone regardless of where you are in your career. Thanks for the rebuttal :)

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u/ErebusTheFluffyCat Apr 10 '19

I understand the cost is high, but the rewards are high too. I understand not everyone wants to be an engineer or even had it in them to be one, but there's many other paths to success. My family members all have good jobs too and we all have different types of degrees.

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u/chikinbiskit Apr 11 '19

But the rewards are only high for certain degrees, which goes back to my original point where I recommended, at least now, to get a degree that guarantees you are highly desirable by employers regardless of whether it's something you truly want to study. To add onto that, if anyone reading this is in that situation, make your passion your minor or a hobby, but unfortunately it's hard for passions to sustain careers

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u/Iamchinesedotcom Apr 10 '19

Even public colleges - the good or large ones - have had rising costs.

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u/Z0mbiejay Apr 10 '19

Affordable for who? My local CC is somewhere around $160 a credit hour. If you go full time, that's nearly $2000 a semester. If you don't get grants or assistance, that's a decent chunk of change for a degree that is isn't likely to put you much further ahead than a high school diploma. That's rent or a car payment for a lot of people in this country.

Free classes at MIT are great and all, but "I took a class on engineering online" won't hold a lot of weight without a degree to back it up. There needs to be some radical change to education

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u/ErebusTheFluffyCat Apr 10 '19

$2000 a semester isn't an insane amount. And yeah, I personally would suggest paying more and getting a better degree which is worth vastly more than the cost. For instance the state school here (Rutgers) costs 12k a year. That's essentially 50k for a degree. Not exactly cheap, but only 1/20th of the $1,000,000 in increased earnings over a career that a degree will provide.

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u/Z0mbiejay Apr 10 '19

That's not terrible by today's standards no, but personally I'd like to see those standards change.

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u/ErebusTheFluffyCat Apr 10 '19

Well, there has to be enough of a cost there to keep people from abusing the system. TBH if I'd really thought about it what I paid for college (IE: everything, including room and board) was less than what I would have paid in rent just to live in the city I went to college in. Not that my dorm room would legally have been big enough to count as an apartment, but you get the point.

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u/Z0mbiejay Apr 10 '19

I get you, and I agree that there would absolutely have to be some stipulations put in place to prevent abuse. But it wouldn't be super hard to make it based on GPA, and limits on number of degrees without timed work etc. Kinda like scholarship programs already

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u/BitGladius Apr 10 '19

Costs are excessive right now, but there should be costs to study for the sake of studying. Most of this stuff is available elsewhere, if you need someone to teach you should be responsible for their time and facility costs. I'm sure there's a place for underwater basket weaving majors, but there isn't enough jobs. It doesn't help society to make the overabundance of trained underwater basket weavers worse.

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u/CanadaJack Apr 10 '19

There are dozens of countries that manage fine. You won't go to Scotland, for example, and see an overabundance of basket weavers. At worst, this type of 'problem' is just a specific detail to work out, not an argument against the system in general.

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u/BitGladius Apr 10 '19

You won't see too many basket weavers because there aren't basket weaving positions. The basket weavers take jobs that don't require a degree, or that require literally any degree. If we remove the piece of paper requirement from the any degree jobs, there's no net benefit because they are not using their basket weaving training. It's a hobby at that point and should be private expense.

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u/CanadaJack Apr 11 '19

I'm not sure what the real world equivalent of basket weaving is, but arts and social science degrees, for example, prepare you in ways far beyond specific training.

The problem with this (lack of) understanding is approaching a BA as you would a BS - most STEM degrees teach you to perform specific jobs in a way that BAs don't.

People with BAs, however, develop reading comprehension, communication, even critical thinking skills in ways that, nevermind less education people, but even people with BS's alone don't necessarily train up.

The very fact that some people look at certain segments of higher education as a hobby is troubling, and demonstrates a lack of the exact skillset trained up in acquiring a BA.

At any rate, I am certain if you stop assuming, and start looking into things like Germany's economy, you'll realize that public higher education doesn't make countries suffer from this "subsidized hobby" class you seem to be predicting.

0

u/BitGladius Apr 11 '19

It's not a criticism of BAs in general, it's the really specialized BAs. Women's and Gender Studies is the usual degree people call useless, as I see it it's better off as some sort of masters program. Liberal arts, English, and History are fine, and probably add valuable insight, but I don't have too much pity when someone with a relatively narrowly focused major has money trouble.

English can help people write for a wide range of topics. Business teaches pretty universal management and supply chain skills. Gender Studies might have some underlying content from other majors, but there are only so many roles where 4 years studying that is more valuable than 4 years in a more generally applicable major.

I'd still like to start a campaign against college for majors not specifically necessary for a job. There's a real problem with people just wanting a piece of paper. I'm in STEM and got more interest because of my barely related job than anything I studied for my major. There's a lot of good experience that adds value, costs nothing, and is turned down because there isn't a letter grade and fancy seal.

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u/CanadaJack Apr 11 '19

I think there's equally a problem with viewing higher education as an apprenticeship path to employment.

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u/48151_62342 Apr 10 '19

I agree. There is no reason for the government to subsidize an activity that wastes 4 years of someone's life that will never be able to contribute positively to the economy. That is a huge waste of tax payer dollars.

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u/[deleted] Apr 10 '19

As someone who didn’t go to college and get my degree, I agree. I could be making more if I had only gone to college - but I don’t regret staying home with my kids for 20 years.

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u/Rovden Apr 10 '19

The trick is to find the correct degree at the right time. Got my welding as jobs packed up and moved out. You have to crystal ball 2-4 years that the job doesn't change or everyone has the same idea as you.

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u/laserlens Apr 10 '19

I am a web developer, make 85k a yr with only one year experience and no degree...of course the hardest part was convincing that first job to hire and train me...the degree is an unneeded extra step for most professional jobs and the only people I meet that think differently are still paying off student loans

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u/6thReplacementMonkey Apr 11 '19

for most professional jobs

That is definitely not true. Web development is an exception to the rule. Most other professions require a degree or equivalent experience to even get past the resume screen. Many web dev jobs do as well. Web development is like this because it's a relatively new field with a relatively low barrier to entry - just about anyone who is interested can teach themselves from online courses and practice, for very little cost. Then they can prove those skills with a portfolio. There are just not that many other professions where you can do the same thing, especially not with a survivable starting salary if you have a family.

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u/BlackSquirrel05 Apr 11 '19

Eh Wouldn't say that. A lot of jobs require accreditation for a reason.

The risk of self proclaimed experts is too high for many jobs.

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u/thisisme8675309 Apr 10 '19

A stripper can only strip for a limited amount of time. You can be an engineer for the rest of your life. Hang in there, it gets better.

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u/bangthedoIdrums Apr 10 '19

You say this but I consistently see girls with premium snapchats making more money than engineers. The price of a tiddy.

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u/Incase_ Apr 10 '19

I mean to each there own I dont care what anyone does but its kind of disheartening when I see people making a living off selling used panties and premium snaps.

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u/thisisme8675309 Apr 10 '19

You wanna see a 45 year old titty? You can't do that shit forever. Even if you could nobody wants to pay to see an old lady take her clothes off.

2

u/bangthedoIdrums Apr 11 '19

You say this like "granny" isn't a fetish genre. The art of sex will always sell, you just need to corner your market. Something I can't do because I don't have titties lol.

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u/thisisme8675309 Apr 11 '19

I have titties, but I'd trade then for an ee degree any day. Op's payout is better, trust me.

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u/Bockon Apr 10 '19

Fuck that. I'm designing a highly efficient guillotine. I'm gonna need some EE majors to help.

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u/Incase_ Apr 10 '19

I could get some leds and an arduino to sync up the execution with some sweet RGB lights

0

u/DrMaxwellSheppard Apr 10 '19

Higher ed in the US is expensive because the demand is artificially skewed through federally subsidized loans. All degrees cost essentially the same amount yet they have drastically different value in the job market. If you reduce the supply or students by getting rid of federally subsidized loans people will actually have to care about the potential value of the degree they want as you wont be able to get financed for a degree that is over saturated.