Originally Posted by
StickPig
I don’t disagree with a lot of the things you said, but if you’re going into debt $100-200k for a four year degree you’re doing it all wrong. There’s the military, both active and reserves that pay for college. There’s thousands of scholarships that go infilled every year because people fail to do the leg work to find them. Work-study. Actual work. Community college. In-state vs out/private. Hell, even most high schools now have dual enrollment to start getting credits toward degree requirements. Forgoing room and board and staying in an apartment with roommates and learning how to cook for yourself. A degree (and a useful one at that) can be had with a little ground work and research for under $50k or less. People just don’t want to find ways to do it. It seems it’s become easier to just sign on a loan that you’re now tied to for 25 years. Doesn’t help that money or financial classes aren’t taught anywhere in America for students in high school. Should be a prerequisite to graduation if you ask me…
I'll agree with all that. Even using most of the examples you mentioned though, the costs keeps skyrocketing despite being one of the most intrinsically deflationary sectors imaginable, mostly due to polititians causing massive malivestment by bribing the people with their own money and meddling in economics that they simply don't understand.
Not all that long ago a degree from most good state schools could be had for around or even slightly under 10K at full in state rates. All the relevant civilian ratings could be had for 25-35K. Flight training should have gotten a little more expensive simply because of inflation but college has no excuse. Especially for the plethora of asinine "studies" and "sciences" degrees. The good news is they've made it so expensive trying to make it cheaper, soon they'll have to make it free
Perhaps DL can remain one of the few holdouts that steadfastly requires it going forward. But they've already took some with flow 1.0 and likely just agreed to take more with flow 2.0 and lots of airlines already don't strictly require it. A friend's son made a deal with his dad to go to an ab-initio school instead of a degree. He's 20 now with 600 hours and will likely be at the regionals next year, with much beter pay and movement than most pilots have experienced. They sat down and did the numbers and if he can get on with a descent LCC he'll have it made. Some "majors" don't require it today anyway so that's still not off the table, and I bet some that currently do will change that policy eventually. If he ever needs college, which is looking less likely by the day, he can always bang out a cheap online degree while he's building seniority somewhere and getting paid.