Who says this is a "do nothing" congress?

[GrannySmith]

here public school is actually free... need to claw your way thru the exam, cause only like 15% of those applying get in, but still, free!

In Greece public schools and universities are also completely free (or at least was when I was there) -  we were even given all the books and photocopies! I think more than 15% of the applicants got in, but still those were some pretty hard exams... (but with lots of chances to get in if you studied hard enough for another year!). Much better than everybody getting in and getting burdened with huge loans before they even got a job, that's almost slavery in my eyes!! 
And apart from that, this:

I think schools are still happily absorbing the morons who think an MBA or a law degree is a guarantee of a bright upper-middle-class future.

Having everybody getting in just makes more unemployed people with degrees (hmm, on the other hand that is a problem in greece and was even before the crisis started...) 

Whatever. FREE EDUCATION GODDAMMIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

What's fucking HILARIOUS is that the media looks at the top wage-earning degrees with absolutely no adjustment for family status, so essentially they keep on telling generation after generation "Get these degrees to make money", so generation after generation of middle-class families send their kids to school to get the same degrees the rich kids are getting and then wonder why their kids end up unemployed with massive student debt.

IT'S NOT THE DEGREE, MORONS.

Just about the only truly class-changing degree is medical, and even that's no guarantee.

The way our system is designed, it is almost impossible to rise above the class status you're born into. You can sink, though. Damn straight you can sink.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

THE DEGREE THAT MAKES THE MOST MONEY IS ADVERTISING. Parents, send your kids to advertising school!

That's the big one going around now.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

I can't identify with a lot of things in this topic because I never went to college. I have somehow lucked out and improved my family's financial security situation without it, just through being naturally good at and interested in something that happens to pay well.

There is a part of my mind (which I refer to as the Republican Cortex) which tempts me to think I have somehow achieved "success" through "hard work and tenacity," but I know that's bullshit. It's mostly 75% luck of the draw, and 25% being too scared to leave jobs that piss me off -- which might from the outside look like "dedication," but in my head I know that isn't what it is.

Still, I think the traditional "public school --> college --> rewarding career" path that is so ingrained in our culture is mostly nonsense these days. The problem isn't that higher education is worthless, it's that the really valuable things it can give a person have been engineered right the fuck out of the economy. The way to gainful employment these days is to get trained as a highly-skilled automaton with a very specific expertise. Being well-rounded and dedicating years to "trivial" things like the arts, language, and communication just get you mountains of debt you'll never pay back.

[Cain]

Nigel, you mean...America is a well connected aristocratic state which merely proglumates the ideology of a meritocracy in order to justify putting a vast number of its middle class in debt bondage for the rest of their adult lives?

[Bruno]

I picked an engineering related major based on the reasoning that it held a high potential for self-employment, and advanced ability for breaking shit, or at least causing more interesting, and elaborate problems.

It's definitely not easy climbing up a rung on the ladder, even with an education. I suspect part of the problem is that some people get emotionally invested in their social class. "Poor Pride" is a real thing, which I'm sure the working class got sold to them by some shadowy elite entity at some point, prolly the Romans.

The meme "God loves poor people more, but powerful people have power because God gave it to them, so respect their aurhritigh." is encoded right in most Americans' religious doctrine.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Nigel, you mean...America is a well connected aristocratic state which merely proglumates the ideology of a meritocracy in order to justify putting a vast number of its middle class in debt bondage for the rest of their adult lives?

Yes. That is exactly what I mean, and I am making that my sigline on TCC.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I can't identify with a lot of things in this topic because I never went to college. I have somehow lucked out and improved my family's financial security situation without it, just through being naturally good at and interested in something that happens to pay well.

There is a part of my mind (which I refer to as the Republican Cortex) which tempts me to think I have somehow achieved "success" through "hard work and tenacity," but I know that's bullshit. It's mostly 75% luck of the draw, and 25% being too scared to leave jobs that piss me off -- which might from the outside look like "dedication," but in my head I know that isn't what it is.

Still, I think the traditional "public school --> college --> rewarding career" path that is so ingrained in our culture is mostly nonsense these days. The problem isn't that higher education is worthless, it's that the really valuable things it can give a person have been engineered right the fuck out of the economy. The way to gainful employment these days is to get trained as a highly-skilled automaton with a very specific expertise. Being well-rounded and dedicating years to "trivial" things like the arts, language, and communication just get you mountains of debt you'll never pay back.

And yet... it's still the route that has the best success rate for having more financial security, better health, more free time, and a longer life span.

Second to being born into a wealthy family, that is.

[Cain]

Slight ammendment, for more making sense (I've had 4 hours of sleep):

America is an aristocratic state ruled by and for the well connected, which merely proglumates the ideology of a meritocracy in order to justify putting a vast number of its middle class in debt bondage for the rest of their adult lives?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I have lots and lots of friends who never got college degrees, and they, like myself, did just fine through their 20's and 30's. Where shit gets scary, though, is the 40's, and the health and income disparities widen throughout the 50's and into old age.

Some people get lucky and fall into good careers where college degrees aren't (or at least, weren't at the time) necessary, like programming. Even in those, though, you see wide differences between people who lucked into it and their counterparts with college degrees, particularly as they age.

The reality is that having a college degree does confer a huge advantage... and our system uses that advantage to extort people into going into massive debt in order to achieve it.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Slight ammendment, for more making sense (I've had 4 hours of sleep):

America is an aristocratic state ruled by and for the well connected, which merely proglumates the ideology of a meritocracy in order to justify putting a vast number of its middle class in debt bondage for the rest of their adult lives?

Now I'm concerned about myself because it made perfect sense to me the first time. 

[Ben Shapiro]

We should all get out education from the Houston Free Thinkers for free. That way everything we acquire afterwards is all profit. WAKE UP SHEEPLE!

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

We should all get out education from the Houston Free Thinkers for free. That way everything we acquire afterwards is all profit. WAKE UP SHEEPLE!

[Suu]

I'm pretty much fucked.

Take one expensive art degree I haven't paid off yet, plus a too-costly public university education, plus whatever masters I which will probably guarantee me a management position at McDonald's by the time I'm out: Default central.

Oh well, not like I ever wanted to have credit to do anything, anyway.

[GrannySmith]

Slight ammendment, for more making sense (I've had 4 hours of sleep):

America is an aristocratic state ruled by and for the well connected, which merely proglumates the ideology of a meritocracy in order to justify putting a vast number of its middle class in debt bondage for the rest of their adult lives?

Well, every european country I know is like that too... and i suspect this is a general human issue . and it has to be dealt with somehow