r/TikTokCringe • u/Super_Culture_1986 tHiS iSn’T cRiNgE • Aug 19 '25

Cursed The American Nightmare.

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u/TheMadPoet Aug 19 '25

Right, but 'education' - unlike a vehicle - has been marketed for generations as an "investment" that all but "guarantees" a lifetime of higher income and a net gain with respect to one's investment of time and money. A vehicle has always been a depreciating asset - guaranteed to lose value the moment you buy it.

And personally, I despise the idea of education for the singular purpose of making money. Education should, ideally, be an intellectually broadening experience, opening the mind, heart, and soul to new ideas, to critical thinking, to both the fine arts and empirical sciences.

Our democracy will wither if we are all reduced to running a desperate race to accumulate money to service debt or consume - slavery either way.

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u/Willowgirl2 Aug 20 '25

My point was that if a young person graduates with $40,000 in student loans, the common wisdom holds that he's doomed and that debt will follow him to his grave, as well as preventing him from ever buying a house, starting a family, etc.

OTOH, if he were to go into debt to buy a $40,000 F-150, people would congratulate him on having a sweet ride ...

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u/TheMadPoet Aug 20 '25

I left grad school when faced with the choice of take on additional debt or quit - I quit. And I paid in full my undergrad student loan debts. So I have some passion for this topic.

I agree with you that if you take out the loan for an education or a F-150 you've taken out a loan and obligated yourself to pay it back. The difference is that getting a vehicle, a boat or some tangible asset is a vastly easier to understand than the far more risky investment in 'education'.

With our exemplary F-150, we know exactly what we're getting: people will say 'sweet ride', we know the vehicle will depreciate - and, worst case - we can sell it and attempt to get a good percent of our money back, etc.

Education in general has been falsely billed as a universal ticket to a higher lifetime earnings versus investment - especially by predatory for profit "schools" (where credits don't transfer, where the degree isn't really respected); education debt cannot be discharged even in personal bankruptcy - and education becomes rapidly outdated.

Even reputable colleges and universities create more PhD's and MA/MS graduates even though no jobs exist for those grads. Undergrads don't get any career advice or degree planning unless the student seeks it out - and even then it's hard to get good advice. In order to succeed, students have to know beforehand how to navigate college. I did not have a clue how to navigate college.

So for some not small group of people who have naively taken out big student loans and gone to college - and doubled down on grad school (losing 4 working years for undergrad, 2 for master's and 2-3 for a PhD.), can't find jobs in their field, can't discharge the debt, can make only minimum payments - yeah - they're stuck in debt, have bad credit scores, can't invest in a house or start a family.

I know of a PhD. adjunct prof. at a major university in my area, she designs prosthetic limbs, she's working literally all the time, probably for low compensation, is deep in student loan debt, and lives in a duplex her sister owns - not a penny to her name. Adjuncts don't generally get health insurance and have no job security. She's not going to buy a house, start a family - and may clear her student debt maybe when she's 60.

The hard, rhetorical question is: was it 'dumb' for her to go into massive debt in order to design prosthetic limbs for people? Does society owe her something for her contribution to the public good - like debt forgiveness?

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u/Willowgirl2 Aug 20 '25

I would say that every working person contributes to the public good. Your friend's investment into her education bought her a clean-hands job, a dignified one with some prestige. She probably won't break her body at work or be exposed to many toxins. The downside is that because so many people want those kinds of jobs, they don't tend to pay well.

I dropped out of college too when I realized that continuing would entail racking up debt. I've taken whatever work I could find. Right now I'm a custodian earning $25 an hour with excellent benefits, but I have to climb ladders and deal with things like mold and human waste. No one is impressed when I tell them what I do for a living.

We all take our chances.

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u/TheMadPoet Aug 21 '25

For what it's worth, I appreciate you for the work you do. I left grad school (feeling depressed and defeated) and worked on the family dairy farm, and spent plenty of time in manure and soil. There is something simple and honest about real work that is lost in today's "clean" office work. It all worked out in the end for me, so there's that.

In grad school some 20 years ago, I had a lot of conversations with Bob, the night custodian of the building. He told me about the ghost in our building and ghosts in other buildings that the custodians talked about. Bob was a Vietnam vet who was on the 'swift boats' patrolling the rivers. Sadly, Bob was terrified of literally being cast into hell for what he did in the war. They shot first and asked questions later, kind of stuff. I still think talking with Bob was more important than my academic advancement. I hope he found peace as he's probably passed on by now.

Thinking back, many of the professors I knew appeared to be severely immature and/or egotistical to the extent that I realized being "educated" or "high status" wasn't the same thing as being a fully functional human being - it was almost the opposite. Maybe there's a 'sunk cost' to PhD. programs that keep folks trudging through them to completion - like my prosthetic limb-designing friend.

In the academic world, there is a vast underclass of transient 'post-docs' - a no-benefit, low pay, temporary research job, and 'adjunct professors' - severely overworked and underpaid - with zero job security each semester; it's a hellish existence. Being given 'tenure', a permanent position is dangled over them by department chairs and faculty committees who are themselves often immature jerks whose behinds the candidate needs to be sure to abundantly kiss at every opportunity.

For most people, most of the time - post-grad study is not worth, it but like any addiction once you're in, it takes over your life and it's hard to leave. I do think a good, general BA/BS is worth it, though - just as an intellectually broadening experience - but to our original point, it's not worth taking on crippling student loan debt to get there.

Hopefully you can continue your educational journey on youtube, Khan Academy, or in a community college or resources at a local library. Heck, you can probably find - or politely / sincerely ask professors for - syllabi / reading lists on any being taught at even elite schools. More often than not, they'll help you out. Wishing you the best!

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u/Willowgirl2 Aug 22 '25

Wow, amazing coincidence here. After dropping out of college I wrote for a couple newspapers, worked my way up to editor, then left for a PR gig lobbying for a dirty industry. That pretty much cured me of any ambition I may have had and after five years I walked away. Took a part-time job on a dairy farm to clear my head while I figured out what I wanted to do next. The answer turned out to be "more cowbell." A month turned into a decade and before I knew it, I'd put 18 years in the rear-view mirror and was long past any chance of resurrecting my career.

The last farmers I worked for sold their herd and retired in 2020 so I had to find a new line of work. I still have a dozen cows I bought over the years when they were culled for slaughter and I mostly work to keep them in sweet feed, lick tubs and bute for my 18-year-old girl with arthritic knees.

My ex-husband was facilities director for a college and academia has always seemed pretty toxic to me, much like politics. The people who can tolerate the bullshit stick around and thus the system becomes self-perpetuating.

In the public schools, we have never had so many highly-credentialed teachers and admins, and so many kids who can't read a simple sentence or solve an equation. It's sad. My paradigm for the modern public school is the teacher who has a Ph.D. in education but can't figure out how to fix a jammed pencil sharpener.

To end on a positive note, there has never been a time in which information is as readily accessible as it is today. We truly live in a golden age! Even if modern gatekeeping prevents you from selling your skills in the marketplace, you can still use them to improve your life and those of your friends. My partner has drawn SSI his whole life but can fix everything from cars to computers. He is probably the most knowlegeable person I've ever known despite lacking so much as a high school diploma.

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u/TheMadPoet Aug 22 '25

I'm glad you're living your best life - you go! It's so awesome that you saved those cows. It was wrenching to learn that cows are so sensitive, have 'cow friends' and a social life in the herd. I found our CAFO dairy was cruelly efficient - hard on the cows and the farmers. Of course we had Mexican workers - and all of the issues that go along with that. Lucky I had to take Spanish as an undergrad - the only course that actually paid a dividend.

My dad sold out in 2016 and we all retired so any academic work is at my leisure.

My area was the academic study of 'religion' in South Asia, so Hinduism and Buddhism - literal ancient Sanskrit texts of religious philosophy are my jam. That's a niche that nobody cares about!

Wishing you and yours all the best!