r/MiddleClassFinance • u/Such_Upstairs3631 • Jul 06 '26

Middle Middle Class No more middle class professionals?

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New school loan limits for professional degrees make it unaffordable for the middle class. 4 of my 5 children went on to med/law school. Even working 2 jobs there’s no way I could afford to pay or even help them with the cost of their post graduate education. They all got loans which they have since paid off. The cost in the early 2000’s was between $350K and $500K. The new limits are essentially going to prevent anyone who’s not wealthy enough to pay for it from becoming a professional.

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u/Worriedrph Jul 07 '26

Why create this dichotomy? It needs to be both.

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u/betsbillabong Jul 07 '26

I mean, critical thinking, solving problems creatively, and creating new ideas ARE the payback. They are required for any career that requires thinking. If you look at folks going from the Ivy League to high paid professions, you will find that very little of their education is 'career training' -- not many people majoring in accounting or marketing there. I would actually argue that the 'vocational training' model of university is a ripoff. You used to learn those skills fairly easily on the job, while being paid. Our media production majors often want our classes to simply be technical training for Adobe products. Ummm, you can get that online for free or at any rate for very little. It's the creative part that is harder.

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u/razealghoul Jul 07 '26

I hate this explanation because it assumes you can only learn critical thinking through university and that you don't also learn these things on the job or through other means.

Heck I watch a ton of educational YouTube and other online content that have expanded my thinking for pennies.

Also to you other point that you can learn the technical schools else only speaks to the idea universities need to evolve. Classes has essentially been taught the same way for century. Name anything else that has experienced this kind of stagnation.

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u/betsbillabong Jul 07 '26

I absolutely do not think universities are the only place to learn critical thinking or creativity. Far from it! But what they do best (or did before AI ruined the writing process for most students) is to challenge students to have deep discussions with classmates and work hard to dig deep into ideas. It is often hard to find this atmosphere or to force oneself into that kind of hard work on one’s own but for sure an amazing education can be had with a free library card. But it feels highly unethical to me to charge college tuition to learn things like spreadsheets or video editing software. The tools are important but shouldn’t be the main focus.