And that's when you hear, "Man jobs are everywhere, people are hiring like crazy. You just got to put your boots on the pavement, fella!" This shit was true at one time, when companies would hire for lower-paying jobs without any college or experience, and there was legitimate ability to work your way up in that system. Now, with effectively mandatory college (i.e. job offer: $39k yearly, requirements: 4 yr degree and 4 yrs experience) and diversity quotas hijacking the entire system (i.e. favoring non-whites whose entire passage through these hoops was subsidized by your tax dollars because they wrote a 'killer' essay about their racist experience as a youth), it's very easy to rack up debt going to school in order to hit an absolute dead end - that is, unless you're connected. Of course, that's not true in every domain. People are going to have to start realizing that if you want to make it today with any semblance of independence, you have to plan your course for independence. Get a skilled trade, put in the time and start your own business. If you have the intelligence and motivation, it can pay to get a professional degree and license. But there is just no arguing anymore that the regular get-a-degree-get-a-job-with-big-employer path is working. It's getting harder by the week for people to eek out an existence that allows them to build any amount of wealth that will carry on into future generations.