Me too, but I get the influence growing up with parents facing that hardship stress month after month would have on one's decision making process.

Salaries disnt rise along with cost of living and cost of education. That's the cold hard truth. It is what it is.

Another point being consistently made about ROI, is worries that they'll make that heavy investment and it will be useless in 10, 20, or 30 years and they'll have to go back again, after they have a family to support and maybe even caretaking responsibilities for their own parents. They're starting to see it as a trap in the same way as wage slavery is a trap. They're not calling it that, but basically that's the gist.

They're also highly ignorant of how to navigate college bureaucracy and other options to get there. It's become too cumbersome, they need a guide to walk them through their options and how to get from where they are to where they want to be like rich people's kids get. Kind of like a guidance counselor or something. Shame about those spending cuts, huh?

That right there could be a huge part of the enrollment discrepancy. A girl will go ask for help, and ask and ask and ask until she finds someone willing and able to help her. A boy will stay in the basement looking over the internet (full of misinformation) hoping help finds him while he gets increasingly frustrated. Gender tropes, hard at work.

I do not like these arguments put for by the manosphere in large part because I find them infantalizing to men, disrespectful and dismissive of young people, and exploitative of real problems that may or may not have relatively easy solutions.

But we won't know as long as so much time and energy is having to be spent responding to Influencers and their minions bleeting out repetitive talking points based on grievance speculation just to make money.

I mean....tell me you don't give a rat's ass about young men today without saying you don't care about young men.

I did really appreciate your piece on this topic Robert. It was sensitive and respectful to the young. My kid is a young woman, but still, as a mother I appreciated your nuanced handling of it more than you can know.

Unlike all the talking douchebags.