Thought I might pass this along and file it under "failure of rationality". Sadly, this kind of thing is increasingly common -- getting deep in education debt, but not having increased earning power to service the debt, even with a degree from a respected university.
Summary: Cortney Munna, 26, went $100K into debt to get worthless degrees and is deferring payment even longer, making interest pile up further. She works in an unrelated area (photography) for $22/hour, and it doesn't sound like she has a lot of job security.
We don't find out until the end of the article that her degrees are in women's studies and religious studies.
There are much better ways to spend $100K. Twentysomethings like her are filling up the workforce. I'm worried about the future implications.
I thank my lucky stars I'm not in such a position (in the respects listed in the article -- Munna's probably better off in other respects). I didn't handle college planning as well as I could have, and I regret it to this day. But at least I didn't go deep into debt for a worthless degree.
Twentysomethings like her are filling up the workforce.
Do you mean young people with unrepayable college debt, or young people with unrepayable debt for degrees which were totally unlikely to be of any use?
To whom it may concern:
This thread is for the discussion of Less Wrong topics that have not appeared in recent posts. If a discussion gets unwieldy, celebrate by turning it into a top-level post.
(After the critical success of part II, and the strong box office sales of part III in spite of mixed reviews, will part IV finally see the June Open Thread jump the shark?)