Tell me where you work

Someplace that will only grudgingly give you enough time to write sloppy quick-and-dirty code. Try telling an accounting troll that you need another third as much time to make sure your code is covered. I believe that's commonly referred to as a "Career Limiting Event' as you soon get a reputation for padding your time estimates with activities that do not directly create value. ("Value" being defined as "something we can sell", not "good code". Most of the time those aren't the same thing.)

And if you're thinking "That's not someplace I want to work or buy products from", plan on 1) permanent unemployment and 2) never buying anything again.

It's the complete opposite in the USA. I've been on unemployment assistance a few times. If you are offered a job, ANY job, you are required to take it so long as you are physically capable of doing the work, and that includes heavy lifting if you don't have a documented disability. It's perfectly legal for someone from Walmart to camp out outside the unemployment office and offer jobs to whoever walks out of the office, and so long as it's done within view of an employee, they are *required* to take that job, regardless of anything else. You could be a nuclear physicist; at that point your options are to stop receiving assistance or put on the blue vest. The law says you are not allowed to refuse "suitable" work, but the definition of "suitable" is interpreted to mean "any job at all." Places like Walmart know that they can treat their workers like shit, because what are they going to do? If they quit, no UA benefits, and Walmart just shanghais another jobless warm body at the office to replace them.

No, but self-worth doesn't pay the rent. Excelling at your job doesn't have a great return on investment these days; most of the time, whether you work your brains out or do just enough to not get fired, you get paid the same.

Couldn't agree more. If there are any high school students reading, if anyone tells you to study what interests you, punch them. You should study something that will be marketable once you graduate with $50k in debt. If you don't hate it, that's a bonus.

I don't know why people bother with the scam that is the US education system.

Because, in most cases, if you want a job that doesn't involve a name tag and/or a paper hat, you need a four-year degree. And even then, if you major in English or Communications or some other liberal-arts-well-rounded-fuzzy-squishy field, the most important phrase you'll need to know after graduation is "Would you like fries with that."

HR people are lazy. In this job market, they're flooded with resumes for even the worst jobs. An easy way to cull the herd is to shitcan any resume that doesn't have a Bachelor's degree on it, regardless of the job. You can be the best programmer/analyst/actuarial/whatever in the world, and a perfect fit for the job, but if you don't have the degree, you don't exist.

There is no reason to go 50k in the hole, just so you can get a job making 30k a year.

Yes there is. Just not a reason that's good for the worker. It's good for the business that hires them, because that debt is an incentive to not complain when the company treats them like shit.

But but but FREE MARKET! Government BAD! Regulation EVIL! etc.

Clearly you've never tried to buy wireless phone service in the United States. Every provider charges for incoming texts. In theory, competition would tend to discourage that, but a long time ago American Big Business found out that if they ALL treated their customers like shit, then the customers wouldn't have a choice but to live with it. (Why do you think that American consumers pay an inordinate amount for their internet service as compared to other developed nations? Because every broadband provider charges that much. It's also complicated by the fact that most American consumers don't have much choice as to who they get their broadband service from; I could choose Verizon over Comcast if I wanted to, I'm lucky enough to live someplace where both services are offered, but they both suck, just in slightly different ways. This is also why the entire telecommunications industry is angry at Google for pointing out that the emperor has no clothes with regard to internet service; they've shown that they can provide broadband-level access for a fraction of what the others charge and still remain a going concern.) Technically, this should be illegal, but since it doesn't require any overt collusion or actual tangible communication between competing companies, no law is being broken. (The "invisible hand" of the free market at work, don't you know.) They do the same thing with their employees; so long as the guy across the street treats his workers just as badly as you do, your employees won't leave to go someplace where they get treated better, because that place doesn't exist.

The .gov should stay out and let the markets decide who wins because then it costs the taxpayer nothing.

That looks dynamite on paper, but not so great in practice. On paper, investing in renewable energy has the potential to have a profitable outcome, but practical application (or widespread adoption on the scale that would be required) is years away. If you're a rich guy, and you have the American attitude of considering instant gratification the only acceptable situation, why would you invest in something that maybe will make you money in 5 or 10 years, when you can invest in existing fossil fuel energy sources and make money nearly instantly? Then when fossil fuels are no longer profitable, we have no viable alternatives, because they couldn't get money to develop them. Energy costs skyrocket (because Exxon will make money no matter what), the economy tanks because we're spending so much on an essential resource, and we're all pretty much screwed. But hey, at least we have the morally superior position of having a free market!

"Free" markets plus short-sighted investors equals disaster. Do I think we subsidize too many industries? Of course I do, That money could be better spent on research into alternatives to dead dinosaurs, not lining the oil executives' pockets.

Please provide an example of this "CIA-funded propaganda".

A long time ago, those in charge realized that so long as every employer treated the people who do actual work like shit, they wouldn't quit to go somewhere else when you treated them like shit. The other guy treats his employees just as badly (or worse). Wages have been flat across all sectors for 40 years, while productivity has steadily improved. Executives buy million dollar vacation homes while the workers that make that possible struggle to pay for 2 bedroom homes in shitty neighborhoods. The truth is, that hard work doesn't get you anything other than more hard work. The trick is to make money off others' hard work.

The American Dream used to be "work hard, make good decisions, and you'll get ahead and give your children advantages you didn't have." Now, it's "Get other people to work hard and take the lion's share of profits for yourself, fuck them." Yet another manifestation of the prevailing "I've got mine, fuck you" attitude that is destroying our country.

BS cum laude, with departmental honors.

When you're sitting in Rocks for Jocks 101 with 600 of your closest friends, you're a number. There is no other option than to teach by rote, because any sort of student engagement is pretty much impossible. "So don't take that class", I hear you saying. There are these things called "general education requirements", which serve no purpose other than to milk you for tuition money for 3 or 4 semesters taking classes you have no interest in but cannot opt out of. Since neither you nor anyone else can opt out of the class, the classes are huge.

By the time you actually get to classes relating to your major, you'll be instructed by completely disinterested graduate students who see you as an impediment to their working on their thesis. They teach you what's on the syllabus, and trust me, critical thinking isn't on there.

Since I've graduated, I found that my degree from a state university was pretty much not worth the paper it's printed on, in terms of impressing future employers enough to actually call you. The joke was "Diplomas - Please Take One" written above the toilet paper in the bathrooms. In hindsight, I think it might have been a better move to not go; the degree is a stain on my resume. The fact that the school now has "open enrollment" (read: if you have a pulse and a checkbook, you're accepted) makes this worse. Thanks, guys, glad my (genuine) hard work paid off.

I now work in a completely different field than my degree. My B.S. basically qualifies me for low-level service jobs at companies in my field. Had I studied something more useful, I'd probably be 10 years further along in my career than I am now. My son is going to study something useful, dammit, if he wants to do something useless like 'Communications' or 'Russian Literature" or "Fashion Marketing" (no kidding, that was a major at my university) he can pay for it his damn self. And when he moves back in with us after a year of not being able to find a job, I'll say "I told you so."

Are your numbers strictly tuition, or tuition/room/board/fees? Where I went to school, you have no choice but to pay room and board for the first two years. Oddly enough, it takes two years to establish residency in this state. Funny how that rule prevents anyone from getting in-state tuition, even though they spend 4 years living in this state...

If you went by strictly tuition, then where I went to school, the tuition is ~$900 per semester. Everything else is (mandatory) fees and room/board. There was a program a while back that rewarded students who performed well on state standardized testing with 'free tuition' to any state college/university. That's great, except now you have to come up with the other $23,000 to actually go there. And it's even worse than that; tuition is not retained on the campus, it's paid into the state general fund. The state government then decides how much it's going to give back to the university, and as you've probably guessed, it's not all of it. So, realistically, the state only loses like $800 a year or so by waiving 'tuition' to the well-performing students.

In looking at the numbers just now, it looks like they've started charging students in Engineering disciplines and Honors students more than everyone else. Yes, let's reward the student who wants to study something useful like Engineering or wants to distinguish themselves from their peers with "with Honors" after their degree with higher tuition! Captive audience and all that. (Incidentally, had I been in the Honors program, I would have graduated summa cum laude. But, since I didn't do the extra classes or pick the 'special' Honors study groups, I only got 'cum laude'.)