Comment by dota_fanatic | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dota_fanatic | Hacker News Reader

It would have been nice to have been told up front: "Rent will be this much higher (for a building with worse quality due to mass production), which you'll have to pay to get access to the city where the jobs are. Wages will be stagnant by this much, and god save you if you have some kind of health crisis and don't navigate the healthcare system just so."

Anyone saying these kids or their parents should've known better need to get real. Most of the middle and lower class was hustled. Of course, they and those with even fewer protections abroad are still needed to get shit done. That is, only until those jobs can be replaced with automation so profits can be even higher at the top. Humans are so fragile, costly, lazy, biased / inaccurate, and replaceable.

What then? People keep saying that things have never been better, though, so I guess there's that. Meanwhile (anecdote incoming), most of childhood friends are barely scraping by while living with their parents, clinically depressed & flirting with homelessness, or dead. The successful ones are few and far between, and they're typically those that were born with more "intelligence". And by successful, I mean achieving some kind of success that somewhat matches their parent's standard of living.

> Anyone saying these kids or their parents should've known better need to get real. Most of the middle and lower class was hustled.

This may well be true in the general case (and by extension, in the majority of individual cases), but I've started to lose sympathy as I see more and more people who were told about the risks up front but still decide to get degrees that aren't good economic propositions.

>>Most of the middle and lower class was hustled.

Into what?

I'm from India, and I generally have to talk to my younger cousins when they think of choosing courses like Arts, History, Literature and Media studies about impossibility of making a good living with that sort of an academic background. Almost certainly these people will have to do jobs that don't remotely match their education, and are generally low paying. Career is almost non-existent, and then starts the regular whining and hating people from the STEM(and law) branches. In fact even science and technology degrees will get you nothing more then low paying jobs as teachers. Your best bet as a salaried employee is with a engineering degree, medicine and may be law.

I can only understand how much more worse it can be for people in America, with far higher student debts, high rents in cities, unfortunate health interruptions and in a largely credit driven consumerism based economy. You can pretty much spend your whole life paying loans(education, house etc).

Next time while choosing a course, at least make sure it gives you some bare minimal skills. I would even bet, some thing like carpentry, welding or plumbing would be more helpful to making a living than some thing like studying History.

Having been through this once and now doing it a second time as a parent the information is available. It is not hidden. The undereducated parents are the ones that need help. But I see well educated parents not pay attention.

My comments apply to the traditional not for profit schools. The for profit ones are probably as you say.

Agreed, the prudent and frugal way is possible, and more accessible than ever for those looking in the right places. And it is rewarding, very rewarding compared to the other option of irresponsibility, when you're small enough to fail hard. Be sure to look the other way as those in a positions of wealth and information advantage make orders of magnitude more progress than you, lest you get discouraged at the complete lack of fairness of it all or overhear them wondering why you're not as successful or as hard-working or as beautiful or as intelligent as them.

In the professional field, we're expected to be specialists, and if you're not, you lose out (comparatively). In life, we're expected to understand and make informed decisions on a huge range of topics, and if you're not, or if you err, it's your fault. Some people have enough support to be picked up, reflect and become stronger and make better decisions next time, but most don't.

If your family and your teachers and your self didn't prepare you to navigate this extremely complex world of maneuvering, intelligent, powerful agents... then what do you do? You suffer and you try to cope and you fight to find some peace by whatever means necessary, ethics be damned. You keep climbing or you fall.

I'm one of those people with "uneducated parents" and it's true they do not know the least about it. My father actually told every single one of his kids not to go to college.

4/5 did (a couple have grad degress) and only 1 of those has been able to make good on their investment (my sister who is a nurse). I love learning and I'm glad I am educated, but I would not do this all again. Americans pride ourselves on being a classless society, but the reality is I was born to blue collar workers and I was meant to be a blue collar worker. The extreme attempt at being a white collar worker has failed most in my family. All we did was get was huge debts that have crippled every one of us through our 20's and 30's.

And then we're told to get on our hands and knees and thank our bosses for the opportunity to never be challenged or build a career. I would rather slit my throat than continue to be lied to about all these "opportunities" I apparently have. I've made plans to do just that if I am going to be forced into another bullshit job where I get to make the world worse all for the "opportunity" to not be challenged or pay off my student loans. It sucks, but I see more virtue in going off and dying.

You sound like you are in a very dark place. It's true student debt is bullshit but your life is so much more important. Screw it. Leave the country before you consider dying. So many people in your boat so hopefully things will change. I am sorry you are going through this...

in grade 12 at my highschool we had a whole unit by the guidance staff about college. We took personality/aptitude tests that were all "tell us about yourself and we'll list some jobs you might consider preparing for"

Among other things, it had five year projections for salaries and job prospects. It said "this is what these people get paid now, and this is how we think it will change". It said "this industry is in demand" or "you will have a hard time finding work doing this"

This is not hard to find. Nobody looks

It's certainly a rigged system, but (anecdote incoming) I know many people in situations such as you describe, and the most that the majority (not all) do about it is complain. I rarely see a true effort put forth to rectify or improve.

It's typically all about how the forces are aligned against them, so why even try. And yeah, I know, learned helplessness is a thing. I get it, trust me, I do, but still...

Most of my friends in the US are in the same position. Then I look at my friends overseas (same age) and they've bought houses, have investments, seem much happier and healthier and less stressed about the basics ...

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