Coerced by whom?
?? As has been pointed out to you several times, social/societal coercion is a thing, it is real, and you are not an island no matter what sort of kool-aid you drank that brought you to that conclusion. In fact, the kool-aid itself is an example, as is your mistaken attitude that you alone control your actions and you alone bear responsibility for anything that happens to you
Seriously, being wilfully ignorant to the degree you demonstrate comes with responsibilities. You should complain to your college or university for letting you out, or call the BBB and file a report against them for taking government money and not providing you with the basics.
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âSociety made me take out those loans, so society should pay for them!â
Society actually SHOULD pay for education, as itâs proven that it provides better results.
People are CONSTANTLY being told, over and fucking over, that if they donât get a college degree they wonât get a real job - more, that they wonât DESERVE a real job, wonât deserve to have a place to live, wonât deserve to have food to eat. That If you donât have a college degree, itâs your own fault when you starve.
And now people are finding that even with college degrees, theyâre starving anyway.
The entire system is sick and needs to be gutted.
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Iâm waiting for @goodpasture to quote Ayn Rand to us.
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Iâve said it before and Iâll say it again. Education, Health, Prisons, Military are costs of living in a society and SHOULD NEVER BE PRIVATIZED. It is the cost of ensuring your citizenry is smart, healthy, and protected, these industries should not be run for a profit, ever.
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Well, considering theyâve pretty much said theyâre OK with lying and stealing, so long as the people in power do it and not the little guyâŚ
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Iâm sure John Galt paid back his crippling student debt.
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I prefer Rose Wilder Lane 
[citation needed]
Ah, so youâll respond to that but none of my other comments or questions. I get it.
So you think education isnât a basic right? So, youâre up for dismantling public schools? If not, how is the university any different?
Having a fed, housed, and educated populace with access to gainful employment and a decent environment is how we have a stable and happy citizenry that arenât just serfs for the oligarchs.
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Well, I have done what I can to help working class kids and subvert the system.
Over my working life I have hired maybe 20-25 people without college degrees for jobs which supposedly ârequiredâ one. Most of my hires worked out pretty damn good, too.
Fought a lot of battles with HR departments - lost a couple, won a bunch.
A breach of contract.
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Which is beside the point I was making, which is working class jobs have largely left America. That the handful that donât (carpenter, plumber, electrician) pay well doesnât mean that there are enough of those jobs to provide for folks. The fact that your plumber is pulling in $80/hour doesnât work if there are 100 people that want his job.
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What we canât do is say, âwe will pay whatever the universities feel like they want to be paid, because education is a basic rightâ.
The same sort of cost control mechanisms that we are applying in (for example) healthcare, need to be applied in education, if itâs taxpayers who will be footing the bill.
Well, for sure the NYT article authorâs age is showing, since heâs in my generation (Siegel is just 3 years younger than me; he was born in 1957.)
Imma call BS on this op-ed. Siegel is talking about 1974. The '74 economy was a bit staggered (the '73 oil embargo/crisis, the long bear market, Nixon taking the U.S. off the gold standard, inflation), but there was still plenty of work (as in, physical labor) if your nose didnât crinkle at the prospect of callouses on your hands. For easier work, say, clerking at a record shop or selling shoes, you had to wait a few weeks for something to open upâŚbut for a young, single, white male in Jersey there were plenty of opportunities. (There was also plenty of Pell grants, and work-study, and small scholarships for non-independent students. Maybe Siegel just had shitty high school counseling? Or maybe he just made bad decisions? Maybe he just likes to stick it to The Man? Weâll never know, 'cuz heâs not telling.)
At the time he enrolled, the national average for tuition, room, and board in all U.S. 1974 4-year schools was $2,577. (Most unis back then required at least a year of dorm living for incoming traditional students.) That was not a high barrier! For instance, I worked a year in a mid-level factory to save up for my first year at UofM â brought home $95 a week, lived alone, had a car, and I still saved up $2,300. Once in school, I got jobs for U Housing and U Food Service. When summer factory work got tight in '74, I went to Texas and worked oil field supply, getting a shit wage but 84 hours a week; this was enough for a whole year. (To be clear â my last year at UofM cost me $27.50 per credit hour; that was only 10 hours of work! My friends in UoM Law School were only paying $620 per semester!)
Todayâs situation for college students sucks bad, and deserves better than this all-relevant-details-absent op-ed screed from Siegel. (More missed details: in '74, the max interest rate on federally-insured student loans was 4%; 80% of a school-based insured loan was federally protected against borrower default.) This guy needs to address todayâs very real problems or else STFU.
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I donât disagree with you (although we might disagree on the reason why).
Can we both agree that one thing we should not be doing is phonying-up job requirements, demanding college degrees for jobs that historically have not required them??
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Normally I try real hard not to repeat myself in a thread, but please take note that:
The easier it becomes to take on massive amounts of debt in order to purchase a specific product, the more quickly the price of that product will rise, often to levels several times in excess of its inherent value.
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I 100% agree.
