We need to completely restructure the education system. It’s madness to allow a young naïve student to take on $100k in debt for a worthless degree. The universities just take the money, they don’t care and have no skin in the game. Maybe the cost of the tuition should be proportional to the market value of the degree(?)...plus the amount that can be taken as a loan might be proportional to a degrees value. The value a degree in the workforce should be made blindingly obvious. Maybe these institutions should be required to publish/email reports per semester about degrees and market value.
Maybe they should be the source of the loans...get the government out! What we have is a source of funding (government) of loans at higher interest rates than other private loan providers to entities that prey on those that believe any degree is valuable and keep raising prices so long as governments keep handing out the loans.
It all makes no sense whatsoever - it ends up funding “hate studies” types of degrees and the indoctrination of young minds toward garbage.
Even STEM is wrecked. Young engineers these days have no common sense and could not math their way out of a paper bag. By far the worst programmers on the planet have computer degrees, and dont get me started on plc programmers with degrees in automation who can’t program, do math, and are completely clueless about mechanical systems or thermodynamics or anything else remotely sciency.
I think it’s up to the parents to some extent to guide their college-age children into choosing more useful majors. We advised our kids to get a BS degree in something (anything!), not a BA. They all did: Economics, Business, Computer Science, and my last will also be choosing some sort of STEM-related degree.
Getting a BS is more rigorous than a BA and cuts out a lot of indoctrination.
It actually doesn’t NEED to cost $100K to get a 4 year degree. The first two years can be an AS or AA degree at a community college, living at home and with free or very reduced tuition (more and more states offer that).
Some students do live within commuting distance from a 4 year state school to transfer into. If not, then yes the last two years of a public state would cost $50K—but less if living frugally, and at least not $100K.
If parents saved up FROM BIRTH in a 529, putting in just a little each month, there would be less need to borrower even the $50K.
I did manage to save up (in an age adjusted 529 plan) $100K for each of my 4 kids—but I started from their birth and I did get lucky with a great stock market over the last decade.