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Comment on The student loan crisis will dwarf the housing market crash.parent

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I don't see this as being true. I went to a state school (UofI). It cost $700 a quarter.

I got bored and dropped out. I had absolutely no trouble finding a job. Not having a degree has not come up at all, even when working for a big corporation that does extensive background checks.

So I am not buying that college must be expensive, or that there is no way to get a job without completing college. Sure, some people are rejected from some jobs for not having a degree, and some people spend a lot of money on college for no real reason. Overspending on college is no different than overspending on anything else.

(Example: I just bought a $900 vacuum cleaner. That doesn't mean that if you don't have $900 you can't clean your house. It just means that I overspent.)

> I am not buying that college must be expensive

That was my whole point. College doesn't have to be expensive, in fact it can be free or nearly so.

> I had absolutely no trouble finding a job. Not having a degree has not come up at all, even when working for a big corporation that does extensive background checks.

That's good :) My impression from friends is that having a degree would have been a big plus, not just for getting the job but also for the compensation.

> Overspending on college is no different than overspending on anything else.

That's true too. But we - TrueTech Canada Inc - spent a good bit of money getting some our employees that were seriously in debt out of it, and we helped a few that were still in school to avoid going in to debt. I was quite surprised to see kids that young saddled with such huge debts, $35K in one case.

> (Example: I just bought a $900 vacuum cleaner. That doesn't mean that if you don't have $900 you can't clean your house. It just means that I overspent.)

Sounds like you have some industrial cleaning power there :)

You had a subsidized education. The cost of the education was not $700 a quarter, that was just the share of it that you paid.

This subsidized education is available for anyone, though, just like the $70,000 a quarter educations are.

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