hahaha. IF they had the skills and intelligence I do they would NOT be making 8$/hour. I still work 50-60 hours a week even though I'm a broken down old arthritic bastard with a 10 year hip replacement who needs the other hip, a knee, an ankle, a cervical fusion and a lower back fusion. You're obviously a smart guy but damn you're foolish. In fact I did earn it. I worked all the way through undergrad and post grad school working >40 hours/week for $3/hour while in a very demanding curriculum. I worked concrete construction between school years in undergrad for $3/hour. I carried a 3.9 in undergrad so I got some decent academic scholarship money after the first semester. I got ZERO federal grant money. I got no financial help from my parents and managed to escape undergrad 250 bucks in debt mainly due to dating my now wife. I did have to borrow about 55K for my post graduate work at about 8% interest....and I paid it all off and didn't expect taxpayers to eat it. I lived very frugally and made it work. ....yeah you're right somebody "GAVE" me my utopia. I started with nothing chump and worked my *** off.
When did you go to school? The amount of federal and state subsidies has dropped dramatically. Since 1969 the average degree cost has risen 340% after adjusting for inflation.
If you were early 80’s your $3 a hour job, adjusting for inflation would be the equivalent of around $10-11 an hour today, your average tuition and fees would have been around $1000-1500 a year, or $4-5K adjusting for inflation.
Compare today if you make $10-11 an hour, your tuition and fees runs $11k.
Using inflation adjusted numbers, 40 hours a week, full work year.
College in early 80’s, cost $5K, salary $20-$22K.
College today, cost $11K, salary $20-22K.
This doesn’t even begin to address housing, food and other things it takes to live.
You can talk personal responsibility and all you want, the truth is you had the benefit of a lower cost education because colleges were funded better by taxpayers. Americans were willing to invest in future generations and genuinely tried to leave each generation better off than the prior one. I don’t see that mentality anymore. I just hear the tired old excuse of I did it, so why can’t others?