It's not just customer entitlement. It's been a steadily rising thing throughout society for my whole life.
People are less and less willing to accept responsibility for their choices, and more and more it's always someone else's fault.
For example, a person who chose to go $300,000 into debt to go to Columbia film school, where the starting salary upon graduating is $30,000, claims to be a victim of the school.
But in that example, Columbia made students big promises that it simply couldn’t deliver. It’s more like a deeply dishonest salesman than a hapless waiter who gets your order wrong. From James Stoteraux:
> Many of the students in my class who didn’t turn their degrees into industry success were insanely talented, but Columbia traded on its reputation to sell them big dreams that it could never deliver.
> During my 2nd year I suspected that the school wasn’t providing a launching pad to a career — most of the instructors were struggling to establish a career themselves & many weren’t even much more experienced than their students. A 4th yr student taught our cinematography class.
> The brass ring the program dangled was that your film could be chosen for the annual festival where, in theory, big-time agents would see it and maybe sign you. But it was cutthroat to even be selected for the festival. And tuition didn’t cover the cost to make those films.
…
> I slowly begin to realize this IS the deal. He made it pretty clear if I wanted my degree, I needed to help him sell his tv pilot. Yep, the Chair of Columbia’s prestigious graduate film program tried to shake me down in order to jump-start his own stalled out career.
Students definitely deserve some blame for signing onto these expensive programs without doing any meaningful research. But university admins can be corrupt, too, and it’s likely that they used their reputation as “Columbia” to sell students something they knew was fake.
Anyway, in response to the original point — I don’t think that’s a good example of entitlement since “scam” is a more appropriate word. I think they had stuff like “people being mean to waiters and flight attendants” in mind, which is a different sort of entitlement.
Allowing any random 18 year old to sign for a $300,000 unsecured loan is insane. At that age, most people simply can’t calculate the risk they’re taking. At that age, you are programmed to think you’re invincible and take unreasonable risks. It’s why we send 18 year olds to war. No one else would take those odds.
They don't get loaned $300,000 in the first year. It gets doled out over 6 years (a Master's program). That's $50,000 per year. At any point they can quit (and only be liable for the debt up to that point), transfer to another school, or change majors.
At what point do you consider the person a functional adult and assign some responsibility?
> It’s why we send 18 year olds to war.
18 year olds are most likely to survive the rigors of combat. Survival rates drop steadily from 18 on.
> No one else would take those odds.
Plenty do. The US, for example, has had an all-volunteer army since the 1970's. The Navy and Air Force have always been all-volunteer. My dad volunteered at 23. A lot of volunteers were rejected for being too old.
It doesn't apply for film school, but there are plenty of scam law schools that sell students on the prospect of massive future earnings my juking the stats. For example, it's common to say that some high percentage of past students are employed after graduation, but it's often an outright lie or the numbers are padded by the university giving low-wage sham jobs to most graduates.
Of course, you _can_ find information and protect yourself from even these scams _most_ of the time, but I don't think the "just do your due diligence" argument holds enough of the time to dismiss the general argument being made, even if it applies to specific cases.
So everybody should drop out after they first start to hear second hand info about it? And it’s their fault if they don’t or if they do but they’re on the tail end of the grapevine so it takes a few years? And that’s the system working justly?
If you imagine the uncertainty and justifiable inertia involved in a realistic scenario, I don’t see how you can dismiss arguments that it’s not necessarily just the fault of kids for not doing due diligence.
> So everybody should drop out after they first start to hear second hand info about it?
Choices are:
1. continue, rack up $300,000 debt with no way to pay it off
2. change majors to something that pays
Which do you think is the sensible decision?
> just the fault of kids
You're infantilizing them. They are adults. They can vote. They can drive cars. They can sign contracts. They can join the military and command others. They go to the big boy prison if they commit crimes. They can consult with their parents or anyone they respect. They can marry. They can have gender reassignment surgery.
They can use google. Just like you and I can.
They're not victims.
Do you really believe they spent 6 years studying a major and had no clue what the career prospects were? I don't.
You expect a 15-17 year old to have the life experience to deal with this? They've been told exactly what to do their whole lives. Then they have been told how amazing and great and awesome they are, surely they won't be the ones coming out at that bottom wage.
Masters' degree students are 22-25. They don't go to college until 18, either, and even then they have FOUR years to figure out how to google starting salaries for their major. And if it doesn't look good, they have time to change majors, or at least stop digging deeper.
This seems like a wild take to be honest. Humanity over the generations remains much the same beast, it's just that as you get old you forget the lessons your generation had to learn by experience (rose tinted glasses so to speak). You also fail to see that the context of the humans being raised today is different from yours, and their experiences / opportunities different as well. Heck, even those in your generation likely had wildly different experiences / opportunities compared to you.
It's also weird to present such a wild off the wall example at the end. I don't think such people are common.
Common or not, I regularly see stories about this in the newspaper. The students change, the stories are the same "but nobody told me I couldn't get a decent job in this major, look at all the debt I have now."
Always consider why you should trust them or what their ulterior motive is (selling papers, stoking outrage, etc.).
Talk with some folks from the new generation and build a connection beyond what someone else wants you to feel / think about them, you might be surprised what you have in common.
In the past you didn't end up with a $100,000 of debt. That's what's changed. If you failed you could try again. Now you get your one chance with an education and that's it.
I agree customer entitlement is growing but I disagree with your example.
We created a society where we tell people they should chase their dreams and anything is possible in America. Then, when they chase their dreams and fail we tell them how stupid they are that they did that and they should have done something more practical. I don’t think teenagers should be blamed for doing exactly what they were told to do and they’re right to be angry at the system.
Students often need to decide during undergrad to apply to grad school and at that point many are 19 or 20 years old. Not teenagers is a little pedantic.
Applying to grad school is not making a commitment. One still has two more years. At any time while in grad school, one can google starting salaries, and stop digging in deeper if the math doesn't work.
I wouldn’t underestimate the feeling of the sunken cost (especially after studying and taking the GRE, writing essays, getting recommendations from professors). For someone relatively young who isn’t aware of alternatives nor has prepared for alternatives, it’s not surprising they would keep going down the path feeling they have no better choice at that point, only a choice to imagine their future selves will work even harder to “make it”.
> especially after studying and taking the GRE, writing essays, getting recommendations from professors
Sorry, I have to laugh at the idea that taking the GRE, writing an essay, and getting recommendations is so onerous one feels compelled to take on $300,000 in debt due to the sunk cost fallacy.
It's still their choice, and therefore their responsibility. It's not society's responsibility to make up for their sunk cost fallacy.
Besides, one can always change majors or transfer to another school with better prospects. Lots of students do that.
P.S. Studying for the GREs is what one did the previous 4 years getting a Bachelor's. Nobody I knew studied for the GRE. You should know that stuff by then. The GREs I took didn't go past sophomore material.
That doesn't change the fact that we push people to go to college. We tell people anything is possible in America. We say this is the land of opportunity and you can do whatever we want and to follow your dreams. Then, we charge people a hundred thousand dollars to follow their dream and tell them that dreams are stupid and they should have been practical and googled salaries and career expectations.
America is still designed for when a college degree was payable with a minimum wage job. We either need to fix our schools or acknowledge the American dream is dead and we tricked a generation into giving us money for something they could never have.
The assumption that there's any kind of tidy line from a major to a career is a problem, and is hard to shake. I had good enough advice to know to look out for it, and I still got bitten by a situation where solid grades in a viable major were worth little without an in-field internship.
I've changed my mind on this a few times, but I think schools or creditors should have some duty to not give out loans of this magnitude to 17-year olds with little to no financial literacy. The same way that a bank would not give you a huge loan with bad credit. Schools should also be extremely upfront about this type of financial information.
These were Masters degree students, not 17 year olds. They had SIX years to type this into google:
Starting salary for film degree
I would think an educated student would know how to use google? But I bet they actually did know this, and went ahead anyway, and now just want to blame others.
It's taking longer than I would have thought for this meme to soak in for the general public. I knew this back in college, but that was a bit ago...
There isn't a lot of room at the top in film (at least until the creator economy table flips Hollywood). Likewise, there aren't many paid positions for historians, philosophy professors, etc.
Kids need to understand that their top priority should be to understand the shape of the economy and how to make themselves a valuable, indispensable part of it. Doing this early affords much greater freedom and leisure later in life.
Basically, kids need to understand supply and demand for careers. If they don't, it greatly impacts their future stability and happiness.
That person clearly is not a victim of the school, rather that person is the victim of a predatory loan.
Just think about it. A degree doesn't have to cost $300000 but the bank financed it anyway, with the clear intention of working that person down to their bones. Why would a bank let someone take a debt that takes 10 years of work to repay? Because they want to force that person to work for 10 years. If the law were sane the debtor would default as soon as possible.
It's not just customer entitlement. It's been a steadily rising thing throughout society for my whole life.
People are less and less willing to accept responsibility for their choices, and more and more it's always someone else's fault.
For example, a person who chose to go $300,000 into debt to go to Columbia film school, where the starting salary upon graduating is $30,000, claims to be a victim of the school.