The entire time I was growing up, I was told it was &quot;college or bust&quot;. I was never told that it would be &quot;college <i>and</i> bust&quot;, but that seems to be the reality.<p>Kids were told over and over that a college degree would ensure their future success, that they&#x27;d be practically guaranteed to get a career that made paying their student loans trivial, on top of a nice house and a car because that&#x27;s the American Dream, isn&#x27;t it?<p>It&#x27;s easy as an adult to look back on it and say &quot;wow, that was a big mistake&quot;, now that I know how jobs and the economy actually work, but first we had to unlearn everything our parents, teachers, career counselors, and college financial advisers told us in the first place.