See this is kind of the issue. There is this misconception that its largely hard working, diligent, lower income kids who go to college and are left holding thousands in debt and a worthless degree. But this is hardly the case at all. Its the glut of entitled millennials studying completely bogus things that have no practical real world application other than the lucky guy or gal who gets face time on the documentaries about saving the elephants or cleaning up the oceans. The sense of entitlement, as well as the desire to "experience" college, traveling, and socializing, all play as big a part in the equation as the shitty and dishonest education system. A lot of it is a choice.
I attended college with the intention of going to law school. I researched the top majors of law school entrants and chose to double major in History and English. I killed the LSATs. Then the financial crisis happened. I thought finance was interesting and for shits put off law school and got myself into a job without having any of the "you're supposed to go to school for this if you want to do finance" qualifications. And this was in 2010 when finance was dead and no one else was hiring. I just worked hard and started at the bottom using common sense. So many of these folks, they are either stupid, or not trying hard enough.
Make no mistake, there are plenty of idiots and people who should have known better OR lazy people who took out too many student loans.
There are ALSO a lot of people who legitimately did not know any better, OR who were actually deceived by the skools into taking out loans. I personally know some who were.
You also have (had?) the problem of high schools pushing EVERYBODY into college. When I went to high school, there simply was no other realistic option other than the military. There were no shop classes, there were no apprenticeships, we were all told that the trades and manufacturing were for people who could not hack it and you were a stupid loser if you didn't go to college. This was coming from parents, peers, guidance counselors. That was also a while ago, when college was a LOT less expensive than it is now.
Why should institutions of higher learning have no skin in the game? They get paid up front regardless of how well their graduates do.
One of the results of all the lawsuits against the law skools was that prospective students were found to be "sophisticated consumers" by the courts and they should have known that the published figures from the skools were fraudulent. Thus, no relief.
Financial planners, CPA's, engineers, car dealers, computer sellers, department stores can't get away with stuff like that but skools can?
it is also not limited to just law skools. It has started to bleed over into other professions. I know a TON of young people who got little or no benefit from their educations.
Let graduates go bankrupt after 5 years. The students can then give up their diplomas, create a database of such, prevent them from working in the field in which they studied/licensed, and then charge back the skool for it.
End result is that there are some goofs that majored in underwater basket weaving, but there are also plenty of students/graduates who "did everything right" and are tremendously disadvantaged for such.
