To Daldolma:
I agree with you completely. To the people who are going to college for "Arts" and "Crafts" and decide to go to a private school taking out 75k in student loans thinking that you will be "GUARANTEED" a job when you get out is ludicrous. When you decide you are ready for college do your research and find a job that is in need. Most people have delusions of grandeur when they think a big businesses are going to hire them.

I'm 26 have 2 jobs that I don't necessarily love, but I have a backup plan. If something along the way jumps out at me I can take it. Whats the worst that can happen? I go back to working in the hospital setting and make great money and great benefits and I can support my family?

It's all about the decisions you make in life.

Furthermore, if you don't want to be 26 living with your parents and living off the government in your own sorrows. Don't go to school for something stupid as hell.

Romney's got no chance in the election. It doesn't really matter what he says or does from here on out. First of all, there are a lot more likely voters that are Democrats. Second of all, Democrats have cornered the market on African-American, Hispanic, and gay voters. Romney would have to absolutely dominate amongst independent white voters to have any shot, and that's just not going to happen. He's polling at roughly 55% of white voters (Obama's at ~39) and 49% of independents (Obama's at ~41). He's got sizable leads in both demos, but that's not enough when Obama is getting 90+% of the African-American vote, 70+% of the Hispanic vote, and just under 70% of the gay vote.

Obama's a unique presidential candidate. He's pulling in super majorities of minority votes, and he's doing well enough with the elderly and college-aged white demographic to secure a sizable margin of victory. He's the first president I can think of that's really won by such drastic margins while getting beaten fairly badly in the "average Joe" white, middle aged vote. It's partly due to a shift in US demographics.

By the way- Romney came out swinging and really threw the president under the bus a few times and that really makes me laugh. He seems like has a grasp on economics. Much better then Obama. Like I said he wasn't my first but Obama has made some really stupid ass promises and decisions in the last four years.

I agree that the sense of entitlement that college grads tend to have is pretty ridiculous. You don't deserve a high-paying job because you spent four years playing Halo and writing essays about Foucault. You've got to hustle to find quality job opportunities.

But at the same time, I don't have any problem with people studying stupid subjects in college. The truth is, what you study doesn't really matter. The rate of unemployment for STEM college graduates is actually higher than it is for your average college graduate. Generally speaking, you're not going to get a job based on your undergraduate major no matter what it is -- most employers just want to see that you've gone to college and are capable of performing the basic tasks required to not fail out or be expelled. Again, that's generally speaking. Of course there are certain fields where your major matters, but most people aren't engineers or doctors or astronauts -- they're Walmart managers or secretaries or teachers.

That being the case, there's no reason to be perpetuating a college loan system that results in low-potential students having access to essentially unlimited loans that a) vastly inflate the costs of attendance, b) cost the taxpayer vast amounts of money, and c) leave the student with unreasonable loan burdens that limit their career choices the minute they graduate.

Well just between me and you. If your not in a college program that specializes either graduate level or undergraduate level your just getting left behind in the dust. These are the people who are getting jobs these days. Unfortunately that's the way it is. I would love to be an astronaut or a rock star but I decided on Physical Therapy =(. But hey its working out at the moment.

They're not the only courses offered, but they're the courses pursued by the vast majority of American college students. There are 60,000 STEM graduates a year in the US, out of 1.75 million college graduates per year. That's about 3.5%. For everyone else, undergraduate coursework is a joke. It's virtually impossible to fail. As it relates to the professional world, college is a testing ground to prove that you're not too incompetent to read, write, meet deadlines, and not get expelled. Again, I'm painting in broad strokes. These are generalizations. If someone graduates from Harvard with a humanities degree, they're probably well prepared for a good number of jobs in a variety of fields. But most college kids don't go to Harvard.

I'd also quibble with the notion that undergraduate STEM degrees are all that much more difficult. The knowledge, and theoretically the grading, should be more absolute, but most STEM courses grade on curves that effectively set your difficulty at a peer-equivalence standing. Don't be the weakest in the herd and you pass.

But regardless of difficulty, I don't really see what your point is. That graduating with an engineering major is so difficult that you are entitled to a job within the field, by sheer virtue of the fact that you graduated with a degree in that field? Of course that's not true. Like any other field, you need to be competitive with your peers to get a quality job. But the world is not exactly closed off to STEM graduates. You're a college graduate, like everyone else -- you can get jobs in other fields, like everyone else. The point is that your degree doesn't really mean all that much. It's a good investment relative to not having a college degree, but it's no guarantee of the successful career path that college degrees used to ensure. And it's certainly no guarantee that you'll be able to pay off significant college loan money in any kind of reasonable time frame.

Nooooo, it doesn't. Read back to my original post, the USA ranks much lower than most countries in exactly those measures. Saying the same thing over and over again doesn't make it true :)

Regards,
Mg

That's pretty much what Romney said.

Are you referring to the post in which you discuss the Human Development Index, which ranks 177 countries? The post in which you praise the Human Development Index for "exactly those measures" which relate to quality and longevity of life? The one in which you deride the US for "barely cracking the top 25"? Because there seems to be an issue with both proportions and your fact checking. The top 25, out of 177, is not much lower than most countries by any definition of "most" that I am aware of.

Beyond that, the United States is not barely cracking the top 25. In the 2011 rankings of Human Development Index, the United States ranks fourth -- behind Norway, Australia, and the Netherlands. Norway has a population of 5 million. Australia has a population of 22 million. The Netherlands has a population of 17 million. If you combined all three countries, their amalgamation would have a population total less than 20% of the United States' population. Norway is comprised of 86% Norwegians. Australia is comprised of 90% European ancestry. The Netherlands is comprised of 81% Dutch. As I said, if you desire to live in a micro-nation that is culturally homogenous and dependent upon others for security, there are a few options that offer higher average quality of living than the United States. Although, of course, immigration prospects to a nation of 5 or 17 or 22 million are fairly bleak for, well, just about everyone.

The bit about atheism is also pretty silly. The US, Ireland, Israel, Spain, and Italy are among the most religious developed nations in the world. They rate #4, #7, #17, #23, and #24 in Human Development Index. The Czech Republic is statistically the most atheist developed nation in the world. They rank #27 in Human Development Index.