College dropouts have debt but no degree
dropping out in debt
We have to look at this issue from several angles. It is easy, like with the "occupy movement" to think that "college should be free", but that is neither true nor the best solution for people who attend colleges, whether they graduate, or for society as a whole.
The truth is that what gives things value is the cost. So if college cost nothing then it will have no value. Something to consider for the people who do graduate since having graduated a person wants their degree to have value. Also, if a college degree has no value then why go to college? One of the main reason that people go to college is not for the love of learning or knowledge but to differentiate themselves from everyone else so that they can be selected for a career. If everyone has a degree then there is no differentiation and so the degree becomes worthless for the selectuions for career advancement.
Also if college was free, consider we already have quite a few who see being a college student as a career for life, who do not graduate. Without some cost then we would have more "students" whose only career goal is to be a college student for ever.
Lastly, consider how many people who would not work the jobs they do if they were not in debt. It is often a matter of matching skill sets with need and the perception of who the person feels they are and the social prestige associated with the job. As stated in the article there are a lot of people with student loan debt working as waiters and waitresses. These people would not work these jobs unless they had to, who today aspires to a career as "waiting staff"? But those jobs are a better match for their capabilities, there is a demand for people to do those jobs in the economy. All the colleges are doing is letting people aspire but maintaining standards when these people fail. It is the economy and economic need that is providing the existential moment. They would have been better off if they had done a self assessment and gone straight to those lines of work without first amassing a crushing debt. It can also be argued that many of these people would be less valuble to the economy if they were not in debt because they have a tendency to only work as hard as they have too and hence a probable cause of their lack of academic success.
The truth is that the economics of going to college often times excludes bright people as well as the less bright. Its hard for a person to show their true potential if they are going to school and working and getting four hours of sleep a night. Thankfully the student loan program does allow such people to go to school. But for the less able it is also a hammer that forces people to see who they are and what the world is all about.
It is ironic that for most of the people who go to college, both those who graduate and those who don't their student loan accounts for most of the education that they get at college, not what they learn in the class room. The lesson comes when the loans become due and then the teaching begins.
