The Lasting Consequences of Student Debt
College is a positional good, so &quot;Is college worth it&quot; is a question with two answers. Let me explain.<p>The first question is &quot;as an individual job-seeker, is college worth it <i>to me personally</i>&quot;. Which it probably still is - there&#x27;s very real discrimination against folks without a degree.<p>The second question is &quot;for job-seekers <i>as a class</i>, does college help them&quot;. Which it almost certainly isn&#x27;t - there&#x27;s a huge amount of time and money spent on what&#x27;s mostly a piece of paper that says &quot;I&#x27;m smart enough to get into college, not-lower-class enough to spend the time and money, and obedient enough to jump through arbitrary hoops&quot;. Employees as a class aren&#x27;t magically better because they have a piece of paper, they&#x27;re better because of specific skills and abilities that they learn that enable extra productivity.<p>People see that college is worth it for individuals, and then they go and shovel gigantic piles of money at college for everyone, and this just pisses me the hell off because it&#x27;s so goddamn wasteful.<p>IMO, the only realistic way out of this hole is to make it illegal to ask about college education or verify with an issuing institution whether or not you have a degree. If an employer asks, they get sued or prosecuted. If a job-seeker tells, the employer can&#x27;t find out if they&#x27;re lying. Only remaining thing is to screen for actual knowledge, like &quot;are you a good enough engineer to not make buildings that collapse&quot;. Professional exams - like the Fundamentals of Engineering or actuarial exams - seem like an appropriate fit for that.