Millenials who are thriving financially have one thing in common

[Robovski]

Is it only college/university? What about trade schools?

[Admiral X]

Honestly I think tuition is as high as it is because of the blank check the government is essentially writing every semester for these universities.

[LittleRaven]

To be fair, the government isn't writing very many blank checks. There are a few, but only a few. The vast, VAST majority of the free money being pumped into universities comes from private lenders. These institutions can't write checks fast enough because they know a few things that are true:

• Most people have a very poor idea of what any given college degree is actually worth, but believe it is nigh priceless.
• Eighteen year olds have notoriously poor judgment.
• Student loans cannot be discharged in bankruptcy.

These simple ingredients yield a stew that is almost unbelievably toxic. (or profitable, depending on how you look at it) There's a super easy fix...simply remove that last ingredient, and the money will dry up INSTANTLY...but politicians are super reluctant to do that for a couple of very good reasons.

• There's an unbelievably staggering amount of money to be made off of naive students and their families.
• Exposing America's class system for what it is might very well lead to a significant number of people thinking that it's time guillotines came back into fashion.

Can't say I entirely blame them. I sure as heck wouldn't want to be the one that brought this train to a halt.

[ProfessorDetective]

To be fair, the government isn't writing very many blank checks. There are a few, but only a few. The vast, VAST majority of the free money being pumped into universities comes from private lenders. These institutions can't write checks fast enough because they know a few things that are true:

• Most people have a very poor idea of what any given college degree is actually worth, but believe it is nigh priceless.
• Eighteen year olds have notoriously poor judgment.
• Student loans cannot be discharged in bankruptcy.

These simple ingredients yield a stew that is almost unbelievably toxic. (or profitable, depending on how you look at it) There's a super easy fix...simply remove that last ingredient, and the money will dry up INSTANTLY...but politicians are super reluctant to do that for a couple of very good reasons.

• There's an unbelievably staggering amount of money to be made off of naive students and their families.
• Exposing America's class system for what it is might very well lead to a significant number of people thinking that it's time guillotines came back into fashion.

Can't say I entirely blame them. I sure as heck wouldn't want to be the one that brought this train to a halt.

Plus a large number of those schools are for-profit scams that care less about giving you a degree than taking your money. Predatory sales tactics for days.

Good rule of thumb: outside of a few exceptions (Western Governors is the big one I know of), if a university is running TV ads: Tread. Carefully.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Yeah even our current president ran one of them.