Unemployment, and so on

[kandrathe]

Or, they could stop letting corporations outsource jobs to maximize profits, that way the jobs stay here and students will have more incentive to take out a loan that will have more assurance they will be able to pay it back, since there would be many more jobs and careers available.

I don't think this is possible without somewhat draconian means. How do you stop GM from importing transmissions built in Mexico? I believe all flat screens are built by 5 manufacturers in Asia. How do you prevent IBM, or Oracle from using computer programmers from Hyderbad in the development of their software solutions? Where my wife works, the DB (and it's support) is actually in India, and they just sign on and use applications from the US.

In general, I hate student loans and I think they are a ponzi-scheme, but since we will never have a free education system sadly, they are probably a necessity for most.

Well, not remotely like a Ponzi scheme. The student takes out a loan, and pays back the principle with a lower than market interest rate. Now, the Feds have taken over the student loan business, so most loans are direct student loans.

But... Are we that much out of norm? OECD -Education at a glance (note: only the OECD or the UN could publish a ~500 page document and call it "At a glance" )

But when you outsource all the jobs to China so the corporations can exploit the pennies-on-the-dollar slave labor over there to increase their profit margin, and at the same time take away all the jobs here, it does not bode well.

Slave labor? Really?

The price for an education is sadly probably not worth the return anymore. Not that I think an education should solely be to equip and prepare graduates for job, the original purpose of education is to learn. But it isn't the 50's anymore. Having a degree now is a requirement now to even move up at Mcdonalds. Its become a really forked up catch-22 situation. I'm in the middle of my education right now, and hope to have my B.A. in Political Science sometime in 2013.

"The Hamilton Project, an economic policy program sponsored by the Brookings Institution, put the average value of a college degree at $570,000 on an average $102,000 investment." -- UPI story But, then again, you are going for political science... which is more in the liberal arts, not so much a vocational type degree, like economics or accounting. And, your Marxist idealism is sort of going against the grain for becoming highly employable even within the US political establishment. So, I guess you should be scared. Most of the Marxists I know are in academia with advanced degrees, or in the "social democratic" closet working for groups like the former ACORN. Have you thought about "Community Organizer"?

I'm scared shirtless right now about the job market and where this economy is going, and if me and my girlfriend will be able to be able to afford to have children (and we aren't getting any younger, she's 35 right now) in time before she passes childbearing age, cause right now we aren't even close to being ready.

There are always adoptable children, and parenting (while rewarding) is also very challenging. You are smart to not jump into it, but having jumped I'd say no one is ever ready. My wife and I waited for 17 years before jumping, and daily we discover that we are not ready.

As for the rest... Sometimes you just need to HOWL.