A poll of 1,000 adults conducted for far-left NBC News asked the following:
Is a four-year college degree “worth the cost because people have a better chance to get a good job and earn more money over their lifetime,” or “not worth the cost because people often graduate without specific job skills and with a large amount of debt to pay off?”
Only 33 percent said yes, while 63 percent said no.
When asked this same question in 2013, 53 percent said yes, while only 40 percent said no.
“It’s just remarkable to see attitudes on any issue shift this dramatically, and particularly on a central tenet of the American dream, which is a college degree. Americans used to view a college degree as aspirational — it provided an opportunity for a better life. And now that promise is really in doubt,” said one of the pollsters from Hart Research Associates/Public Opinion Strategies.
“Remarkably,” adds NBC, “less than half of voters with college degrees see those degrees as worth the cost: 46% now, down from 63% in 2013.”
In 2005, the average tuition debt load was about $19,000. The average as of 2024 is nearly $30,000.
Over the last 30 years, annual tuition has exploded. These numbers have been adjusted for inflation: “public four-year colleges grew from $4,160 to $10,740 and from $19,360 to $38,070 at private nonprofit institutions[.]”
Why, when adjusted for inflation, would tuition more than double at public universities and double for private?
It’s an easy answer: the federal government.
The federal student loan program hands out loans like candy. Worse, the people making the loans (the government) face no moral hazard. If the borrower defaults, who takes the hit? Certainly not the government. This removes all incentive to be careful about lending the money. Therefore, if everyone who wants a student loan gets a student loan regardless of the prospects of it being paid back, colleges can boost their tuition costs, knowing their customers (students) can easily get all the money they want.
Yes, the taxpayers are the true victims, but so are the students. What does a teenager understand about debt and interest on that debt and the indentured servitude that comes with debt? If you hand a nine-year-old the keys to the car, whose fault is that? It’s the same principle here.
Colleges are also predators. These mercenary “institutions of learning” know exactly what they are doing, as far as sending kids out into the real world with a useless degree in some dumb field like “womyn studies.” These schools enrich themselves with lavish buildings and lucrative salaries, as their prey ends up with nothing more than a useless piece of paper and the equivalent of a mortgage.
The solution? Common sense…
First off, it is the schools that benefit from these loans so it is the schools that should offer the loans and face the liability of unpaid loans. At the very least, the government should get out of the school loan business and leave it to a private sector that faces a moral hazard.
In the private sector, the loans would be based on the ability to pay back, meaning the actual value of the degree and not the inflated cost of the degree, so everything would make more financial sense as a result—tuition costs, the degrees chosen, etc.
Above all, young people really need to think about learning a skilled trade. In my little town, for example, if you need a new well dug, there are only two companies, and the waiting list is six months to a year. When you call a plumber, electrician, mechanic, or anyone like that, they always tell you they are super busy. Believe me, we need more people learning those trades.
Better still, those skills are not only more marketable than an arts degree, but imagine the money you’d save doing work on your own home.
And there is nothing disreputable about working with your hands. All those guys do all day is problem-solve. It takes real skill and intelligence to do most of these jobs, and the men who do them (and let’s face it, if the job doesn’t offer air conditioning, it’s usually men doing it) are as smart and knowledgeable as any computer programmer, airline executive, African dance teacher, or semi-retired, online shit-poster for Breitbart.
John Nolte’s first and last novel, Borrowed Time, is winning five-star raves from everyday readers. You can read an excerpt here and an in-depth review here. Also available in hardcover and on Kindle and Audiobook.
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