
Let’s Talk About Millennial Poverty - chollida1
https://medium.com/@mshannabrooks/but-seriously-lets-talk-about-millennial-poverty-526066ad9adb
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devopsproject
My parents and grandparents told me to "go to college". No mention of majors.
They said this because they saw their peers with "college degrees" advancing
in their fields. You could pay for college with a part time summer job making
minimum wage.

Today, the labor market is flooded with "degrees" so the major matters more
than ever. The cost has also skyrocketed. The advice today should be "Go to an
inexpensive college and choose a major that can lead to a lucrative career".

~~~
merpnderp
My parents and grandparents told me to "go to college and learn something
useful". We spent a lot of time discussing cost vs. benefits of each type of
degree. And this was 20 years ago.

I've never understood how people can get a degree in something with little
market value and then be confused as to why they can't find gainful
employment.

~~~
wfo
Because many people think of college as the path you go along to develop a
career, become educated, become a part of an informed and thoughtful society,
(because that is what it used to be and should still be) not a job training
for the general population that is free for corporations and life-destroying
for citizens, their future indentured debt-slaves-cough I mean employees.

Not everybody does a cost-benefit analysis to calculate what jobs are in
demand (realistically, will be in demand 5 years from now which may be
radically different and unpredictable) and what majors give them these skills,
then choose to forgo a real education in order to train for something they
hate because of expected financial return. You're arguing that everyone should
do that. I'd suggest that no-one should.

~~~
sjg007
those that do, go to med school

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angersock
My bike stops, I ditch right towards some bushes and roll off the sidewalk
into grass. The bluejeans, shoes, and presumably legs of the homeless guy
asleep across the sidewalk are safe, their owner sleepily oblivious to my
passing. In the Houston summer, I don't know what he dreams of--maybe of the
same thing the homeless lady I saw last month sprawled (high? napping?
seizing?) across the light rail platform, maybe of a job, maybe of a society
that gives a damn.

As it is, I've got to get to my job. My job which has no benefits. My job
which pays about half the median salary for developers. My job which is
theoretically solving all those "hard problems" that investors and people here
on HN bandy about, and yet which curiously never seem to materialize funding
despite the amount of public celebration of our company's work. Praise is
easier than paying invoices on time, I suppose.

Train opens, I get on, I lean over my bike and watch the world slide by. Some
other millenials (judging by age) are here with me. Unlike the homeless guy,
they still are trying to play their role in the system. Like me, they probably
believe in living within their means. They probably have fuckhuge college
debts to pay off. They probably have people telling them all day "Get a job",
"Work harder", "Be generous to others".

If they're entrepreneurial, they get other messages too: "Work on important
things", "Screw revenue, acquire investment", "Everybody is getting funded",
"Normal jobs are for sissies and cowards and the middle class".

They'll keep doing this, as perhaps will I. They'll keep voting for
politicians bought and sold so thoroughly that their vote will never register.
They'll put in long hours working on solved problems, to impress a boss just
as beholden to the system as they. They'll come to work sick because who has
time to see a doctor, if the shitty benefits package could afford one anyway.
They dream of a better situation, of casting off their chains and maybe fixing
the system. Then again, they see through the window as I do the police
hustling the poor and crazy and sick and afraid into vans and cars and tanks
to God knows where for God knows how long. _That 's_ the alternative. _That
's_ what happens when you don't mesh in.

With no funds, large debt, and yet so much messaging that you can change the
world if you just _try_ hard enough, it's a rough place to be. A billboard
urges compassion and giving next to a church, telling me to be happy I've got
what I have. A few blocks later, another billboard shows off cars I can't
afford next to bars that won't let me in.

The door opens. It's time to get off.

