Current Events > How exactly is college a scam?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I thought getting a student loan to earn your degree gets you a high paying job that will help you pay off your student loan and is a good investment for your future. Then I see millions of students deep into student loan debt complaining about not getting the income they thought they'd have once they've graduated.

Because half of the students who go to college pay more into it than they get out of it.

Its not a scam necessarily, but you should be wary about certain majors.

Don't get into debt for a gender studies degree.

30k worth of debt for say a mechanical engineering degree is worth it though.

300k debt for med school is also worth it.

Well being a doctor sucks so that might not be worth it, but you will be fine career wise
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Pay money to earn a degree that is not guaranteed to land you a job that gives you a salary which will pay off your loan for your degree in about 40 years.

It depends on the degree, like above poster said.
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for profit schools
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it's not. it's just that people don't know what to do with their degree. and most people dont bother learning all there is to learn.

college should be a stepping stone to what you want to achieve in life. the problem is that society is pushing into college people who do not know what they want to do with their lives.

I mean the main thing is to have some kind of plan going in, and realistic expectations relative to what fees you pay. Pretty much any professional degree (e.g. Engineers, accountants, law, medicine) will pay itself off well. The biggest mistake I see is people doing a degree that seems interesting, but which doesn't enable access to a job in that field without either postgrad study or existing industry connections (psychology, quite a few science degrees, quite a few arts degrees).
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Because EVERYONE goes to college so there's no incentive for employers to compete for new graduates right now. You want to make money, go to trade school.
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Because liberal arts degrees are useless for the most part and that seems to be what most of these people get.
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Crazyman93 posted...

Because EVERYONE goes to college so there's no incentive for employers to compete for new graduates right now. You want to make money, go to trade school.

This is what I pretty much did. Now I'm making $50K on my second year but the old timers here easily make over $100K with overtime after awhile.

College is a business but people are expected to buy into it. It's basically a money pit unless you have a good idea of what you're getting out of it
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