yes, but I think we need to start discussing what value college is actually bringing to society. Many of these majors do not contribute directly to wealth growth (but teach 'skills' such as critical thinking etc.) Higher education has no incentive to lower prices because they carry none of the risk if a student defaults. Even worse, there is no guarantee that students will be financially successful after graduation and they are still responsible for the debt if they are not successful. I don't blame students for being resentful but I think the resentment needs to be directed at the correct source of the problem: higher education, rather than blaming businesses for not paying enough money to pay off a 100K student loan debt. I think it is a tragedy that we live in a society where you are viewed as 'less than' if one does not go to college. This view takes advantage of our emotions and leads some to go to college without a plan and load up on debt without a clear plan on what they will do with their life. Just to be clear, some people should definitely go to college but the current situation kids being told practically from birth (my evidence is the popularity of 529 funds parents/grandparents set up) that they need to attend college is ridiculous.
Those 529 funds can be used for other forms of education, such as a trade school.
I think the biggest problem is credentialing. Employers want 4 year degrees for just about everything. Many careers/industries could probably switch to 2 year degrees and be fine. I'm sure there are a few that could just do a bootcamp.
All that sort of leads into the secondary problem of debt, with people not considering the cost differences of various schools due to bias, prestige, easy loans (like you mention), whatever. It's still possible to go to the state school I attended and end up with around $85k in debt. Not great, but much better than other schools where tuition alone would surpass that. I feel like this cost difference isn't covered enough in high school, and that students are making emotional decisions about where to go.
