Guess What, Colleges? Two-Thirds Of Your Grads Regret Their Diploma, Costs and Major

For decades now it’s been a sellers’ market for American universities. Conventional wisdom held that the most important way to succeed in life was to get a college diploma, no matter the cost.

Perhaps you’ve noticed university tuitions going up and up. And up. Inexorably.

And so has the debt incurred by their students and those students’ parents. It now totals about $1.6 trillion.

This being another tedious presidential election season, such a massive debt burden has attracted the attention of feeding politicians seeking to reap votes from younger Americans tasked with repaying the loans they signed up for.

As we wrote here earlier this week, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Julian Castro and a growing list of the growing field of candidates have announced various plans to make public school tuitions free and to forgive these massive debts using — you guessed it — new taxes on someone else, namely the well-to-do.

Now comes a new wrinkle in these schemes and the universities’ hopes of continuing to reap huge tuition increases.

A new poll of nearly a quarter-million Americans has found fully two-thirds of them have buyer’s remorse about their diploma, their major and the higher education experience in general. How much longer do you think folks are going to keep paying such fees that produce such dissatisfaction and unhappiness?

Not surprisingly perhaps, the new survey found the top regret was incurring immense debts for that higher education, a debt whose payments run on for many years, causing postponed marriages and families.

An estimated 70 percent of college graduates this year finished school with loans to repay averaging $33,000.

Even older baby boomers are incurring college debts as they return to school for training in new areas not affected by automation and other labor-saving methods. The survey by PayScale found that even Americans over age 62 had some $86 billion in unpaid debts, theirs or their childrens’.

The second largest graduate regret was their choice of college majors. Sen. Marco Rubio has noted in speeches that the occupational demand for Greek philosophers has not been good for about 2,000 years.

Three-quarters of humanities graduates expressed regrets over their choice of study areas, tied to their difficulty finding employment in those areas at higher paying jobs enabling them to pay down the debt.

Most satisfied were majors in math, science, tech and especially engineering. More than a third of computer science grads and four-in-ten engineering grads had no regrets about their area choice of studies.

Interestingly though, teachers expressed the least regrets over their career choices, second least to engineers, despite the chronically low pay of such educators.

College costs are too high in large part because the government subsidizes education with Pell Grants and a whole host of other scholarships and loans.Colleges continually raise tuition because they know that a large portion of the tab is paid for by the taxpayer, not the student.

So rising college costs, together with government subsidies, represent a collaboration between the government and the schools to take money from the taxpayer. Then, by seeking to relieve student debt, leftards are adding to the national debt. Since the national debt represents a future obligation for younger generations, leftards are offering a benefit to some young people now for which all young people who become taxpayers must pay in the future. Leftard "generosity" is a fraud. They are bestowing on young people money, that is actually their own.

Liberalism destroys everything it touches....EVERYTHING!!
That includes higher education. When one looks at what passes for a so-called “professor” these days, its gotta make one want to puke. There was a time when that title of “professor” meant respect, intelligence, honor and a good advisor/teacher. Not anymore!!! Libs have destroyed it, and it’s amazing to watch brain-dead parents actually fund their child’s brainwashing to create tomorrows insane SJWs instead of productive members of society.
Libs can’t stand hard, dirty work. So if one goes to a decent trade school and learns a good, high-demand trade, the likelihood of an insane lib being an instructor is somewhat low. Yeah...that kind of work is sometimes hot, sweaty, dirty, hard work but it’s worth it to be far away from the liberal insane. Plus, the wages can be pretty good depending on the trade.

“....chronically low pay ....’

Every time I see this frosts me! Teachers at the work frontline is 25% less then other people. No they’re not playing hooky from work. Their work is for 9 month school year. Often they spread that 9 month salary out to 12. They’re actually paid quite well for the 9 months. Add the bennies, etc. and its not bad. In WV the average family of four makes $39.5K, the average individual teacher makes $44K to $45K. Also I haven’t seen anything that tells me that there have been much improvement in WV schools since I left 40 years ago. We still seem to be fighting Arkansas, Mississippi for the bottom of the barrel! I would like to find out I am wrong about this. All I see is little improvement and more “radicalizing” unionism!

In theory I actually like the idea of a year round school year. Everywhere I have seen it implemented its done in a manner so it fails.

I have friends who are teachers and they often don’t speak to me for days when I point that out.

The majority of software jobs are in 3rd world countries and pay subsistence wages. It’s only getting worse each year. Electrical and mechanical engineering seem to be following the same path.

Civil engineers might be a little safer; it’s hard to have your bridge or building built by cheap Indians over the internet.

I wouldn’t advise a young person to spend a fortune on college these days, even for a technical degree. I’m with Mike Rowe. Plumbers, welders, and electricians have good job prospects. The rest of us, not so much.

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