If a 4-year degree only ends up getting you a $35k/year salary then the degree itself is worthless.
If a degree is worthless, then it’s a failure on both the consumer for taking the worthless degree and, equally, the university for offering a worthless degree.
We’ve placed far too much blame on the individual for being unable to convert a worthless degree into a fair career. What we really need to do is to start forcing accountability with the colleges, and I don’t mean just forgiving debt: I mean destroying their ability to charge infinite sums of debt.
It’s been estimated that between 60-70% of college diplomas won’t pay themselves back over a worker’s lifetime when accounting for debt interest. A lot of this is due to many departments over saturating limited industries with too many applicants: areas like psychology and arts, for example. I majored in both music performance and accounting and can confirm: out of the 500 people in my university’s school of music, probably only 20 of them went on to have a true career in performance, another 80-100 went on to teach school, band/choir/orchestra etc…. And the remaining 400 will be waiting tables and babysitting for the foreseeable future. I’ve seen it firsthand.
So, my solution: tie the number of positions in a school program to an index of the number of expected jobs. Make the credit requirements stricter for these loans—and also put a federal ceiling on the amount a college can charge IN TOTAL (not just tuition, all expenses) that is also tied to the degree’s expected lifetime earnings.
Don’t forget the universities are just as culpable in the economic mess of our generation. They’ve fucked you over just as much as the employers. Never forget.