system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: Solutions to the student debt crisis don't focus on the root problem: degree inflation

I am arguing that many of the soluions to the student debt crisis would not fix the root of the problem. Problem is explained below. These solutions would actually further delay economic independence of young people since these solutions would create a greater demand for grad school or phds in order to access good paying entry level jobs(degree inflation) and deflate entry level wages (more [insert industry] grads than [insert industry] entry level jobs) 

Root Problem: The phenomenon that jobs, like secretary or entry level office jobs, used to only require high school diplomas, but now require degrees. There used to be many opportunities to support a family with a highschool degree. One major example would be factory jobs. Now many of those jobs are in other contries where people are forced to take extremely low pay or starve. 

The Point:  Degree inflation, automation, and globalization have massively decreased the number of good jobs OVERALL. If there aren't enough good jobs then increasing access to good jobs won't help because there aren't enough good jobs. My entire argument relies on this point so feel free to break this point apart. 

Breakdown for how this relates to student debt: automation and globalization > # of jobs with livable wages decrease and become harder to access > college attendance rates shoot up to access good jobs > high demand increases prices > college becomes less affordable > most low income people have to save for years to access college(aka access a living wage) or get high interest loans > gov't backed student loans > inflation cycle loops 

"Personal responsibility will solve this": If the answer is to get more people into "useful" majors, that won't fix this. For example, lets have 20% more engineering students in the next 5 years, that wont create 20% more entry level engineering jobs. It will make more people go to engineering grad school to stand out. It will deflate entry level wages because employers will have plenty to choose from. Now we have people with more debt getting lower wages. This delays economic independence by years.
gpt
There is no one single root problem for the student loan crisis, but rather many contributing factors. The single biggest issue, however, is that the cost of education has risen far faster than inflation, while the money made by low-income families has risen slower than inflation, resulting in lower wages for the working class as time progresses.

While the CPI (Consumer Price Index, a measure of the change in cost of prices of goods and services) for all items has increased by around 231% since 1980, the CPI for college tuition and fees has increased by about **1199%.** This means that a college education is over five times more expensive today than it was in the 80's, **AFTER** adjusting for inflation. Meanwhile, the Federal Minimum Wage has actually **DECREASED** since 1980 - when adjusting for inflation, in 1980 it was $10.48 an hour.

The issue is known as academic capitalism: when educational facilities exist as businesses meant to make money, rather than as institutions to give students an education. When this happens to coincide with the dominance of one of the most money-hungry and selfish generations being in positions of power, this leads to every possible penny being squeezed out of a system that should have instead cost the public a small amount of taxation.