One thing about the flippant suggestion of joining the military to pay for school is that many people aren't privileged enough to be able to join

That's right, there's Enlistment privilege. And if that exists you better believe there's Officer privilege.

DESPITE what you may think, it's harder to get into the military than it is college. Even back in the halcyon days of the surge when we let all the felons and their felon moms in, it still requires some benchmarks others can't get to

Lets start with medical! Here's a massive list of things you can't have if you want to join. There might be waivers for some of these, but it's based on the needs of the military. And we don't need much of one at the moment https://www.military.com/join-armed-forces/disqualifiers-medical-conditions.html

But say living 18 years in America hasn't made you medically or mentally ineligible to join. Good for you! No small hurdle considering only 30% of Americans are good enough to join. And that's just the enlisteds! Officer corps are harder to get into

First off, you need a four year degree. If you're 'lucky' you can get into a military college. Or maybe you can do ROTC somewhere else. Anywhere else you'll need to take out loans. And there's nothing that says they will all be paid back 100%

Then we have to talk about the people who the military is even presented as a possibility. I grew up around military family so it just made sense to join. Someone like my wife (who could have been a pilot with her spatial skills) didn't. So I had privilege in knowledge.

In conclusion: Shut the fuck up about the military option. No one should have to choose their sanity vs. 20 years of crippling debt. War fucking sucks and should not be a litmus test on who does and doesn't get to go to school

The argument is capitalist in nature. You don't deserve school unless we can extract something from you. Either your sports skills, your intellectual skills, or using your body in the military.

ALL OF WHICH has a degree of privilege to get to where you want to be

People deserve the opportunity to have a good and productive life without strings attached. We can do it, we choose not to because we think there is something 'deserved' for something 'given'. And if we were all on the same level playing field that might be an argument

We are not level and you should not demand a struggle out of anyone, even if you had to struggle yourself. The point is to raise one another up, not step on hands.

And that's all I got to say about that