You seem to believe that college students are rational actors in a free labor market. In fact students are not rational and the markets are not free.
College students are not rational actors
The belief that college is the gateway to a better life was both universal and unquestioned when I was making the choice to go to college. The fact that society changed such that even people with masters degrees in previously stable industries must now work for free or very low wages to get a start simply wasn’t true even ten years ago. Student debt, which cannot be discharged through bankruptcy, is effectively a penalty for making what almost everyone thought was the right choice at the time.
Almost no one does the mathematical calculation you have probably described, carefully weighing amortized costs against expected income for their chosen major. They obey their parents who listen to college counselors and journalists making dubious claims about the benefits of higher ed, and choose to go. Once there, they execute a balancing act between their understanding of a degree’s worth, and their own interests, betting their future against passion.
I’m glad some choose passion. If everyone DID choose based on expected lifetime income, who would choose such comically bad career paths as teaching (in higher ed or no) or journalism? Who would grow food in traditional ways? Who would preserve our musical or artistic heritage? Who would find expression for the pressures of culture?
I’m glad others get to go to college as I did. I think it made me a better, kinder person. A more engaged citizen, a gentler debater, a better cook.
The market isn’t free
What do I mean by “the market isn’t free?” I mean that consumers cannot accurately evalute what they are buying on quality or price.
The lifetime worth of a college degree is unpredictable. Actors do not have perfect or even good information on the available goods in the market, and the markets do not clear, meaning A student cannot effectively compare one degree against another, cannot know that even a computer science degree will lead to employment in their field. For example, how would you compare a degree from Reed, my alma mater, to a degree from Oberlin or Sara Lawarence in market terms? Are they equivalent? Somehow they vary dramatically in price. Why doesn’t the cheaper school steal attendees fromthe more expensive one?
The meat of the matter
I think it’s amazing that in this discussion no one is talking about the price of college. You have probably brought up the price yourself, but only to state, with the benefit of knowledge students did not have when they took on their debt, that the price of college does not match its value. But why is the price so high? Who benefits from that discrepancy? How have we managed to have national discussions about this topic without naming those responsible for it? How is it that multinational banks are able to offer loans to students for those “pointless and fluffy” degrees and then demand repayment for the rest of their lives? Why don’t students have recourse to bankruptcy or forgiveness? Why must they be the ones who bear the brunt of the bank’s bad bet?
I think we should cancel student loan debt. Folks were sold a product that simply did not do what they were assured it would. The government helps people recover from this kind of maltreatment all the time. Afterwards, we should eat the plutocrats who sold us the bum deal in the first place, and use their ill-gotten gains to finance free public college for the next 50 years,