Most of your tuition is covered while you are active duty, $750 per credit hour. If not you can tap into your GI Bill to pay the rest; I did this as I didn't want to fund any of it. Though I could have paid the difference, saving my GI Bill, which would have netted more money for school.

Overall, you analogy is correct. But the military is an easy route when you are 18 - 22 (easier than most people think), as most jobs are not combat related. My job provided services to the general public as well.

You're analogy works for academic programs that lead to careers that pay reasonably well. But, not for underwater tiddlywinks - no amount of time spent in that field will allow you to pay down the debt.

1 - They pay for four years, plus some expenses. Generally, if you drop out of the ROTC program after the start of year two, you owe Uncle Sam whatever has been paid on your behalf. If you finish the program, you are committed to 4+ years of service (differs by branch and job role, with some allowing the commitment to be split between active duty and reserve).

2 - ROTC programs prioritize technical degrees and foreign languages over other degrees.

Agreed, but that’s your onus to calculate the cost/benefit (whatever those benefits may be) of any pursuit, not just academic. It’s just especially important for studying in the US, given the insane cost of education.

Like you said, there’s a skew towards technical degrees, but I think about me and my peers at 18 and man we had no idea what we were doing and had little context for how such a big life decision would affect us down the road.

These things are tough to reconcile but we are all wrestling with them, and we have to keep our heads healthy to contend.

The only mistake I’d warn against is letting this influence your judgement of others, or your prescription for future generations. They are counting on us and we are counting on them. The point about the military speaks to the reality that you are not alone, but the bottom line is we have been dealt an injustice. We must not pass this nonsense on to those depending on us to make it right. We’ve got to stand together against the agregious opportunism undermining the livelihoods of Americans.

If nothing else, I don’t want to bare this weight through my middle age and still have the kids speaking of me in the way they speak of baby-boomers today. This isn’t to say the baby-boomers are to blame, but it is tough to feel sorry for them given the opportunities they had.

I’d much rather get the praise the Great Generation gets. Let’s work for it.

Love yourself, and all the moreso by loving others as well.

I’m curious what your segue is from contextualizing and rationalizing decisions I’ve/we’ve made for myself/ourselves to judgements on others.

My point, I guess, was that it’s easy to think of university costs purely in monetary cost and ignore the inherent time-cost required to pay.

The calculus I did when looking at schools was: it costs X much, median starting salary for this field is Y, I’ll have to “do my time” for Z years as payment for my education. Looking at it that way, I’m paying for school with time, not money.

Yeah they paid for everything - but it had its issues - but he was also exceedingly lucky.

So only do this if you want to do medical and military for a really long time.

Most folks can train as a CNA and do some sort of home health care, for example. Most folks have the ability to work in school kitchens, provide janitorial services for schools, hospitals, and government buildings. Many folks have the capacity to work in day care centers, as substitute teachers, bringing meals to the elderly, mowing lawns for folks that need it, different sorts of service for parks and other public places, and so on.

You can specialize this for some areas: Art degrees? Make beautiful areas. Theater? Free to the public plays. Language degrees? Help out at community centers or translate for folks that need it.

These things allow for necessary training - like plumbers, electricians, car mechanics, business managers, and so on - that aren't traditionally the "give back to the community" sorts of jobs, yet are pretty good to have. Including all sorts of schooling allows for a better educated, well-rounded society in general. As a bonus, the civil service will give folks a chance to be around people they might not otherwise meet.

We can do this before, during, or after college. Part time or full time.

I'd also exempt some folks. Doctors, nurses, teachers, and anyone else in such roles - the folks that by the nature of their jobs, give back to the community and are better off simply doing their jobs as soon as possible.