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A new ‘solution’ to student homelessness: a parking lot where students can sleep safely in their cars
(hechingerreport.org)
this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2025
467 points (100.0% liked)
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WHY are Less people Going to College?
College costs are ridiculous.
Student loans are extortionate.
The ROI on the investment is shitty. IOW you get an expensive degree for a job field that doesn’t pay enough to pay for the degree and living expenses.
There’s a big social media anti-college push. Don’t know whether that’s politically motivated/propaganda, just get rich being a tiktokker or something, or a combination of that and all of the above.
it's an easy message when they already turned college into a scam. I went 10 years ago and I felt like I was getting ripped off. I ended up flunking out and now my student loans I'll never pay off are in default. we need to make employment less dependent on credentials
I think it can be. The problem is colleges and student loan businesses pushing the idea that (expensive student-loan available) college is necessary for a job.
Only certain jobs really need a degree, like medical, engineering, aviation, finance, etc. and probably in the arts it could be helpful, but anything that a proficiency that can be demonstrated with a certificate and/or skill like programming, welding, whatever… yeah. Degrees shouldn’t really be a thing.
Everything in America just doesn't work right. It's either falling apart from lack of Maintenance or it's corrupt
Higher education is necessary. Most kids coming out of high school are incapable of almost anything except basic labor jobs. As our industries get more complex, skilled trained people are more and more necessary.
Certificates/degrees are incredibly valuable.
There are base skills everyone learns from an associates degree regardless of the focus.
Like adult skills. Managing time. Being responsible. Learning how to interact with others professionally. Learning to write better. And some better math skills.
Yes, but everything you listed is the kind of crap we should be teaching in high school, and aren't. That's because America has a fascination with transforming our middle and high schools into tiny little prisons and disciplinary systems rather than places where education happens.
In a theoretical correctly functioning modern society, college absolutely should not be necessary to earn a living except if you wish to enter a specialized field where a significant degree of additional training and accreditation is required in order to, among other things, ensure public safety. If you want to be a doctor or dentist, lawyer, architect, critical infrastructure engineer, etc., then yes. Absolutely, there should be a degree for that.
No one should be attempting to demand with any kind of straight face that it should be "required" to have a nonspecific bullshit degree to get a job in sales, marketing, retail or even retail management, graphic design, programming, etc. In fact, the vast majority of both white collar and blue collar jobs in reality have absolutely nothing to do with getting a degree other than showing employers that you're Willing To Play The Game.
Ive been in and out of college since 2014 and my most recent attempt, specifically one programming course, was the final straw that made me throw my hands up and say fuck it ill teach myself.
On top of paying out of state tuition, i had to pay fees that were meant to support the online learning platform the school used to deliver virtual courses. No biggie, every school ive attended has the same fees. However, this one programming course was integrated with pearson and not just for a few assignments, but for literally everything. Every module, assignment, quiz, etc. was a hyperlink to pearson. My teacher was doing 0 teaching and grading, I was still expected to pay fees for the schools learning platform that was nothing but hyperlinks to pearson, and then on top of all of that i was expected to pay an extra fee to use pearson's platform. But, wait, it gets better. The hyperlinks to pearson were actually directing to pearson's in-house built course that they openly sell on their site at a lower rate than what my school tried to charge me and with a longer access period than I would have gotten through my school.
UMGC, university of maryland global campus, essentially tried to outsource my education to a 3rd party and then asked me to front the cost in addition to their own fees. Yeah, no, i withdrew from the school. As much as I want my bachelors, its not worth it if i have to play these games.
Yeah the professors dont teach shit but having a structured course telling me what order to learn things in and forcing me to do exams, projects, etc. is pretty helpful for learning. Self teaching sht based off whats freely available is hard. There are many paid courses out there for anything online tho. Some ppl do well without structure and they might as well not goto college, learn it all on your own, I do not.