Let’s be Honest DCUM Moms: Half of your kids should not be going to college

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What the heck? This is such a strange rant.

+1
It's the usual angry troll who spouts off about this topic every week. Funny that s/he assumes all kids will have debt after college. The parents I know, including us, paid in full for all our kids to attend college. There will be no debt. The OP is clearly projecting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why would "Johnny at State U" be graduating with six figure debt? If the school is in state and you are UMC (as most DCUM families are), he should be able to attend an in state (or even many out of state) college with no debt, or very minimal. And the long-term benefits of a college degree continue to include much higher lifetime earnings.

+100
I think it's clear the OP is in debt from sending their kid(s) to college and wants everyone to be in the same boat.

[Anonymous]

I can see where op is coming from.

Not every kid is cut out for college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You again? Being educated will always be a positive thing. Just because some fields are becoming saturated in no way means fewer people should continue their educations.

Agree! I imagine ops kid was rejected from top schools and now wants everyone to suffer. OP sounds very MAGA or perhaps it is Trump.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We need to stop looking at a degree as an automatic "upward mobility" button and start looking at it as a high-risk capital allocation. The data is clear. we have a massive surplus of low-value degrees and a labor market that is already starting to discount them. Unless your child is attending a top-tier target school where the institutional prestige acts as a hedge against mediocrity, they are likely walking into an underemployment trap. Johnny from State U is graduating with six-figure debt into a world that doesn't need another generalist with a "Business Administration" degree. We’ve flooded the market with credentials, and in doing so, we've rendered the mid-tier degree effectively worthless for anything other than basic administrative work. but no problem….at least they recorded their fair share of TikTok dances in their SEC sororities….
The "dumbification" of American higher ed is the quiet crisis no one on this board wants to admit. To keep the tuition checks flowing, universities have traded academic rigor for "student satisfaction" andt grade inflation. We are producing a workforce that can follow a rubric but lacks the cognitive stamina for first-principles thinking or problem-solving. While parents are busy comparing "Little Ivies," their kids are losing the ability to synthesize complex information without a digital crutch. We’ve turned college into a four-year delay of adulthood where students learn to navigate bureaucracy instead of mastering a competitive skill.
If you think the ROI is bad now, calculate the impact of AI over the next four years. If your kid is a freshman today, they will enter a 2030 job market where agentic AI has already cannibalized the majority of entry-level white-collar tasks. The "junior analyst" or "entry-level coordinator" roles that used to be the traditional starting point for college grads are being automated out of existence. We are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to train kids for roles that a $20 monthly subscription will do better and faster by the time they graduate. If your child isn't in the top 5% of their field or pursuing a specialized technical trade, you aren't buying them a future…… you're buying them a very expensive seat at a table that is being removed from the room….

Anyway…..keep it up….

Are you suggesting that the AI will be so advanced and also obtainable that the majority of companies will be using it, and not employing anyone?

I’m convinced AI is overblown. I use it at work but don’t see how everyone is convinced no one will have a job because of it. Also jobs will be created.

OP you sound hysterical.

It’s becoming fairly clear that AI-savvy employees are highly coveted. It is in fact replacing non-core jobs…you don’t really need many people writing Ad copy or corporate press releases. It also makes employees more productive and likely will reduce some entry-level talent.

However, it’s failing horribly at critical functions and requires employees to oversee it in real time. It completely wiped out a start-ups database which required hundreds of man hours to replace. It can be easily tricked into helping hackers and scammers defraud a company.

It works best when an employee uses it to say finish lines of code that are then reviewed and corrected in real time, or create the first draft of a presentation that is then corrected in real time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You again? Being educated will always be a positive thing. Just because some fields are becoming saturated in no way means fewer people should continue their educations.

Agree! I imagine ops kid was rejected from top schools and now wants everyone to suffer. OP sounds very MAGA or perhaps it is Trump.

While OP was obviously being sarcastic, OP is right. OP never criticized trade schools…just the opposite….there is no need for everyone in America to attend college…..so the half of your kids is probably right…..better off going to trade school…..OP might have been been a little snobby, but she is right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your post is so offensive. My senior, with an unweighted 4.0 GPA, is going to a trade school next fall because that is his dream and passion. So we are happy for him and support him in that.

But who the hell are you to tell any kid that they should or shouldn’t go to any college that they got accepted into and want to attend? MYOB

Trade schools are undervalued. They leave with a valuable skill and can probably open their own business soon enough.

A lot of families in the top 10% don’t worry what major their child chooses because the child has a lot of money in trust already. Some families want their child to achieve something that makes them look good. Some want their child to have a satisfactory livelihood, there are so many ways it can go it’s kind of stupid to claim what half of kids should or should not do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You again? Being educated will always be a positive thing. Just because some fields are becoming saturated in no way means fewer people should continue their educations.

Agree! I imagine ops kid was rejected from top schools and now wants everyone to suffer. OP sounds very MAGA or perhaps it is Trump.

While OP was obviously being sarcastic, OP is right. OP never criticized trade schools…just the opposite….there is no need for everyone in America to attend college…..so the half of your kids is probably right…..better off going to trade school…..OP might have been been a little snobby, but she is right.

+1. Half of your kids should go to trade school so we can flood the trades with supply and I can get things in my house fixed for $20 instead of $200.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You again? Being educated will always be a positive thing. Just because some fields are becoming saturated in no way means fewer people should continue their educations.

Agree! I imagine ops kid was rejected from top schools and now wants everyone to suffer. OP sounds very MAGA or perhaps it is Trump.

While OP was obviously being sarcastic, OP is right. OP never criticized trade schools…just the opposite….there is no need for everyone in America to attend college…..so the half of your kids is probably right…..better off going to trade school…..OP might have been been a little snobby, but she is right.

There are plenty of trade schools that are colleges. Community colleges teach trades that earn a high starting salary. They also have classes in writing, math, history and other to prepare for the working world. Engineering is considered a trade that needs four years

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You again? Being educated will always be a positive thing. Just because some fields are becoming saturated in no way means fewer people should continue their educations.

Agree! I imagine ops kid was rejected from top schools and now wants everyone to suffer. OP sounds very MAGA or perhaps it is Trump.

While OP was obviously being sarcastic, OP is right. OP never criticized trade schools…just the opposite….there is no need for everyone in America to attend college…..so the half of your kids is probably right…..better off going to trade school…..OP might have been been a little snobby, but she is right.

+1. Half of your kids should go to trade school so we can flood the trades with supply and I can get things in my house fixed for $20 instead of $200.

Nobody is going to your house for $20 ya cheapskate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You again? Being educated will always be a positive thing. Just because some fields are becoming saturated in no way means fewer people should continue their educations.

Agree! I imagine ops kid was rejected from top schools and now wants everyone to suffer. OP sounds very MAGA or perhaps it is Trump.

While OP was obviously being sarcastic, OP is right. OP never criticized trade schools…just the opposite….there is no need for everyone in America to attend college…..so the half of your kids is probably right…..better off going to trade school…..OP might have been been a little snobby, but she is right.

+1. Half of your kids should go to trade school so we can flood the trades with supply and I can get things in my house fixed for $20 instead of $200.

Nobody is going to your house for $20 ya cheapskate.

They will if all of these kids go to trade school that OP and others want. I’m all for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bizzare post. What do you do for living? Where did your kids go to college and grad school? What jobs do they have?

That person works directly or indirectly for Vladimir Putin.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

It’s becoming fairly clear that AI-savvy employees are highly coveted. It is in fact replacing non-core jobs…you don’t really need many people writing Ad copy or corporate press releases.

AIs might be able to help a skilled human write a good press release or pitch more quickly.

The ones in widespread use now absolutely can’t write a good press release or pitch. The writing is terrible.

[Anonymous]

One problem with the original post is the idea that the main purpose of a college education is job prep.

I wanted my kid to go to college because it’s good, clean fun that helps a student become an enlightened citizen and gives a student a chance to connect with an intellectual conversation that’s been going on for thousands of years.

Trump could wipe us all out tomorrow, but at least my kid will go out after having had a glimpse of the divine light of wisdom.

[Anonymous]

I agree there needs to be a discussion about college costs. But the narrative being pushed at the moment that college is a waste of time and should only be reserved for a few people seems rather suspicious. I don’t see college as just job training. Also, given the current situation, maybe we need more emphasis on the humanities.