>The current situation of 70k a year college is predatory, but a student accepting that cost should be smart enough to know what that means.
Many students who accept these loans are 17-18 years old. Expecting children to make solid financial decisions regarding hundreds of thousands of dollars is optimistic at best.
That doesn't quite describe things accurately. Students take out these loans. They do so, because their parents, along with government-employed guidance counselors tell them that they have to go to college. In half of the cases, the people accepting the loan money are public colleges and universities. Then you have political candidates getting on TV and talking about how its essential for everyone to go to college. And to put the cherry on top, it's the government that lends these students that money.
So I agree that 17-18 year olds aren't in a position to make solid financial decisions. But its the parents, teachers, and the government encouraging those kids to make those bad financial decisions.
At any age, if you take out any 100k loan, you can discharge it in bankruptcy. Except student loans. Why do we make an exception for the loans being made to the youngest people? I'll tell you: because banks and universities are taking advantage of them.
Perhaps after 1-2 years of mandatory military or civil service. Experiences like that put things into quite a perspective. At least for me, going on to university straight from high school was the most illinformed thing I ever did.
Get a job. There, now you can afford a gap year if you save. Spend six months working all the hours you can get, whether it’s in McDonald’s or something better and if you continue to live like a high school student you can absolutely afford six months in South or Southeast Asia.
Youth unemployment, even at the lowest it's been in more than 50 years and even with the low labor force participation rate among youth, is still quite high. So “get a job” is far from automatic with desire.
> if you continue to live like a high school student you can absolutely afford six months in South or Southeast Asia.
But living like a high school student means “fully supported by your parents in their home”, which, if your parents aren't in South or Southeast Asia, you probably can't manage there. Aside from (and because of) that, high school students tend not to have a particularly spartan lifestyle, actually it's often quite profligate, so I'm not sure what you are trying to say here.
In a country where people who can’t speak the majority language and have no legal right to work have little trouble finding a job I doubt there’s much difficulty finding work for most.
Forgive my lack of clarity in writing. If you work a full time job while living at home with your parents for six months after graduating high school, maintaining the same spending patterns as previously you will be able to go back packing for six months, no problem.
I know this is true because one of my friends did that except in Europe, which is much more expensive, and another spent a year doing SE Asia, usually on under $20 a day.
A gap year is affordable for active who can get a job. If Taco Bell is offering $100K a year for managers the labor market must no decent even for unskilled entry level workers.
How does a college spend that $70k? It seems awfully high.
In a subject where there are 500 students in the lecture hall, 1 or 2 of those are paying for the lecturer and building use. What's happening to the other $34M?
I agree with your point but I think it's important to use more realistic numbers.
According to [1] the average tuition numbers are closer to the following:
$10k public in-state,
$25k public out-of-state,
$50k private
In my own personal experience at a large public university, only freshman-level classes have on the order of hundreds of students. But even supposing the average lecture hall contains ~40 students paying ~$20k per year each, that's about $800k per year. Maybe each student has 4 classes, so there's about $200k for each course. Let's say the professor teaches two classes, taking a generous salary of $50k per class. That leaves ~$150k per class unaccounted for! Not as outrageous as your $34M number but still quite unacceptable.
Many students who accept these loans are 17-18 years old. Expecting children to make solid financial decisions regarding hundreds of thousands of dollars is optimistic at best.