GP IMO, there are three primary reasons for the "everyone must go to college" craze (and it is crazy).

1. Misplaced drive for equality of outcome.

2. Lack of high paying manufacturing jobs not requiring college.

3. IQ testing of applicants not permitted.

GP The first point is that because we are living in a woke-tocracy where ability and skill don't matter anymore in education, we have defaulted to "every child is smart, driven, and hard-working enough to get a higher education," which is of course utter garbage.

GP Some kids are dumb as posts. Nothing wrong with that, but why would you set them up for failure by sending them to do something they can't?

Since K-12 unions don't want to take the blame for unprepared kids, most colleges now offer remedial math and reading courses.

GP So kids who are unqualified for whatever reason can now pay for the privilege of realizing they aren't cut out for higher education by taking out large, nondischargeable student loans.

Good plan.

GP The second point is that our super-smart globalized (and nearly all screamingly leftist) elites in media, education, and government have decided it's better for America to get rid of its manufacturing base than to keep good jobs here even if concessions are needed.

GP If HS grads (I use the term loosely because so many graduate knowing nothing but woke crap) look around and see the only jobs they can get are counter help or basic office work with no hope of advancement, they're going to try another means to get ahead: college.

GP The Greatest Generation and Boomers had pretty much guaranteed unionized manufacturing employment on HS graduation. That started dying somewhere in the middle of GenX and it's been dead for decades now.

Like everything else, greedy Boomers ruined it for the rest of us.

GP On the third point, while not outright banned, you're looking to get your pants sued off on some sort of disparate impact/racist company claim thanks to SCOTUS' Duke Power decision.

GP To be fair, Duke Power actually was using IQ tests as a thin excuse to weed out qualified black people from good jobs. Duke Power rightly got slapped down.

GP But wouldn't it be a crap-ton cheaper to bring back and strictly monitor IQ testing than have kids waste years and tens of thousands of dollars to go to college for which they're unprepared?

GP Because once businesses couldn't use IQ testing anymore, they started to rely on a different sorting mechanism to figure out how smart and hard working applicants were: a college degree.

GP That's why college degrees are required for so many jobs that they're not needed for.

I've said before probably 90% of the jobs at my good-paying company don't require a college degree. They require a smart critical thinker who learns quickly.

That's it.

GP We have created this perfect storm of crap because of so many shortsighted and downright horrible decisions across decades.

Now we have a permaclass of uneducated but credentialed kids fighting for nonexistent jobs saddled with nondischargeable student loan debt.

GP I don't want to let people who borrowed money from taxpayers off the hook. But I do think we need to come up with a solution for this group of people.

GP And if we don't, the alternative is either a growing bloc of people to whom socialism looks like the solution (hint: it is most definitely not).

Or violence.

We need to act in as conservative manner as possible to cut off the coming storm.