Do you feel "the system" is working more or less as it should?

[dead0man]

The good news is that if a housing bubble were to burst, the damage would be much more contained than in 2007-2008. The banks are way less leveraged than they were and there aren't billions and billions in toxic assets on their books(at least yet).

yeah, but it would still be leveraged onto the average joe's back anyway.

@Simmy et al. I think the one of the main problems with saying "too many in college" is that reinforces that higher education is for a upper, upper-middle and middle-middle classes, while working-class people are wrong (even a drag on the economy) for thinking above their station.

It may do that, but it doesn't have to do that.  If you're fit for college, then you should be able to go.  But not everybody is fit for college, and we shouldn't tell all HS kids that they are.

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Are even the people with sh**tty grades told they should go to college too?  I was under the impression (and feel free to correct) that in the UK those tests you take when you're 16 mean everything.  If you screw 'em up, get used to saying "you want chips with that?" kind of thing?  That would be good.  That's not how it is here. 

I barely graduated HS, me and school don't get along, but I was still told by EVERYBODY that college is my only option.  My parents were ok with me joining the military, but they would have preferred me going to college.  The adults at school were even worse.  "you're so smart, you HAVE to go to college...if you make good grades you can go to a "good" school, why aren't you making good grades, you're so smart!, anyway, lets get you enrolled at the local community college, do good there and you can transfer to a "good" school in a couple of years...it's actually better this way because you can save yourself some money" <if its better, why aren't they encouraging everybody to go that route?>  So I did community college for a couple years, it went exactly as well as HS....actually a little better because I could make my own schedule and the classes were slightly more interesting, but it was pretty much the same as HS.  I eventually dropped out, worked a little construction and then joined the USAF.  Best mistake I ever made.

It's just not true that everybody should go to college.  Hell, it's not true that everybody should go to middle school.  I'm not saying education should stop (it should never stop), I'm just saying the current system harms many individuals.

[Blair]

Well my dad went to uni in the 1970's; didn't have to pay any money for his fees, and got a maintenance grant from the govt. His parents were relatively well off, and the state had paid for him to go to a Public school (private). He isn't academic, or extremely intelligent but he works hard, and has had a stable job teaching for 25 years. The system worked pretty well for him.

Compare that to my generation where you get 35K worth of debt, to then battle to simply get a 3 month unpaid internship making tea for an MP (I'd literally kill for this type of job)

This is the problem with graduate levels job in the UK-it starts with internships. For someone like me (Middle class guy with middle class parents) it's easier to get those contacts, and build those relationships. However it's still pretty difficult; that's why many of my friends went straight into work, or get apprenticeships after uni.

TL:DR; people like me are hoping that after 10 years of not going work/paid that I'll get a decent job

[DemPGH]

No, in large part because it is very antiquated, almost stuck in the 19th century, certainly the mid 20th century. If you picked a degree that's very employable, great. If you picked one where the competition is so fierce as to make finding a job nearly impossible, or else is not employable, then it's not great. I know someone who works in a literature department in a very good state school. She tells me they routinely get 385+ applications yearly for 7-8 slots, and they leave out people from the Ivies, to say nothing of good people from mid tier state schools. Those people worked hard and have nothing to show for it but undergrad debt and years of study making only room and board. Higher education is going to have to adapt to teach people how to make money/principles of business, how to work in technical areas, or whatever - something to fall back on, NOT just take whatever it is that they think will enrich them. Make whatever will enrich you a hobby. It's easier said than done, and it's complex, but for tons of people, no, it doesn't work at all.

Also, the market can only take so much of any one thing. I hear that some STEM fields are starting to tighten up. There are only so many biologists who can find work, like there are only so many journalists who can find work, and attorneys, and then fields will get flooded. Psychology is a great example - flooded, plus it's very far from a lucrative field. I guess you have to sit down as an 18 year old, do some research, and make a very good decision with good advice backing you up, and that lacks too. A lot of kids don't honestly realize that their art restoration degree or acting degree will not employ them, so they desperately need something to fall back on (business, technical stuff, etc.).

There are also a lot of depressing books on the state of the university as an entity, and how so much of what goes on is completely outmoded or designed to just get peoples' money and then leave them in the lurch. I'd recommend checking out some of those books. There are lots of them and a lot of people are making hay writing them.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

What needs to be noted - particularly because it is habitually overlooked - is that things are even worse for young people who did not go to university. Of course you don't have the debt (but then in many countries you don't if you go to uni and in some - Britain for instance - it would be more accurate to think of student debt as a tax; the extremes of the American system are unusual), but so many jobs now require a degree (and in practice others require one in order to be taken seriously at the application stage even if a degree is technically not demanded) that the lack of one typically places you at a major disadvantage.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Unfortunately, this kind of thinking rarely bothers to consider that the trades also require aptitude. Most of this analysis is under-girded by the classist assumption that while only a real genius can, say, write a legal brief, interpret a financial statement, or analyze an argument, any idiot can repair an engine, sow a field, or wire a building. This is ridiculous. There's no reason to believe that people who earn a good living in the trades are any less talented, in the most generalizable sense, than those who earn a good living in a profession. When Marco Rubio called for "more welders and fewer philosophers" a few months ago, he was insulting both groups by implying both (A) that there are too many philosophers and (B) that second-rate philosophers would somehow make good welders.

^^^

This is a point that really can't be repeated enough.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

When voters decide to throw competence, experience, and mainstream ideology out the window and vote for an extremist "outsider" candidate like Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders, then you'd have to be delusional to think the system is working well.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

When voters decide to throw competence, experience, and mainstream ideology out the window and vote for an extremist "outsider" candidate like Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders, then you'd have to be delusional to think the system is working well.

Well yes, that's the point; Donald Trump is what we deserve.

[DavidB.]

I truly agree with most of what Averroës and Sibboleth said here. The situation in the Netherlands is quite similar to the situation in Britain: it is hard to get a job on an academic level after graduating. It is not like it was in the past. Then again, my mother graduated in the 80s and she could not find a job either, so it is not as if "the system" always worked well. But yes, it is getting harder and I do not have high expectations of my future career in the Netherlands, even if things are probably worse in almost all other countries. I don't really care so much for earning much money, but at least I'd like to find a job that enables me to pay the bills without receiving money from my parents.

That being said, I do feel privileged that I grew up in a well-off suburb and that I have had the opportunity to pursue two master's degrees without having any debts -- something that is impossible for most Dutch students enrolling in universities now, because the government recently phased out its program of basically giving students "free money", and also something that is obviously impossible for students in the UK and the US.

The idea that too many people enroll in universities and that this is a major problem is something I very much agree with, and I do not agree with the idea that this is something "classist": the ones who go to college but don't really belong there are just as often kids from "higher" backgrounds.

[Gustaf]

No. Despite having the technological ability end such ailments, poverty, malnutrution, repression, premature mortality, disgusting working conditions, war, inequality, illiteracy and deprivation are endemic, and even treated as "just part of the natural order". I'm increasingly convinced that one of the enemies of human progress is the nation-state, but petty nationalism continues to shackle us, and most every other internationalist I've met sounds like a hippy-dippy moron. Even in my first world country, we are led by a small clique from a handful of public schools; yet any attempt to challenge the supremacy of these institutions is met with a screech. The idle rich get away with murder while the poor get sucked dry. There is no solidarity between oppressed persons, despite the fevered dreams of trots. Abuse of children and women by those in powerful goes on unabated. Despite the grave strain the World is under, the system is only achingly slowly moving or even conceiving the thought that will give arise to such a shift.

I mean liberal capitalism is the best solution that has been tried out at the moment. But to say such a system is the best humanity can come up with would basically border on misanthropy...

I'm not sure where you get this dark outlook. We have eradicated so much poverty, illness and unfairness in the world and empowered so many previously powerless people that it is almost impossible to grasp. The progress is staggering and shows no sign of letting up either. Most of human history could be accurately described by your post, but in more recent years we see progress on an unprecedented scale.

I mean, here you guys are sitting around discussing whether the life as a young healthy person destined (at least on average) to join the highest income levels in one of the richest countries the world has ever seen is not really as good as you'd like.

There are plenty of injustices to combat in the world but we should do it with a sense of optimism and a clear understanding of what works.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

err Gustaf, you missed my point.

liberal capitalism is the best solution that has been tried out at the moment. But to say such a system is the best humanity can come up with would basically border on misanthropy.

I'm against complacency and this Whiggish idea that the whole of human history is a march of inevitable progress to the current day. The current "system" is better than various other methods humans have governed themselves under, but it is riddled with flaws and should not be treated as sacrosanct.

[dead0man]

err Gustaf, you missed my point.

liberal capitalism is the best solution that has been tried out at the moment. But to say such a system is the best humanity can come up with would basically border on misanthropy.

I'm against complacency and this Whiggish idea that the whole of human history is a march of inevitable progress to the current day. The current "system" is better than various other methods humans have governed themselves under, but it is riddled with flaws and should not be treated as sacrosanct.

But the topic isn't "is the current system the best possible system", and nobody is arguing that it is.