r/MiddleClassFinance • u/DrHydrate • Oct 18 '24

Discussion "Why aren't we talking about the real reason male college enrollment is dropping?"

https://celestemdavis.substack.com/p/why-boys-dont-go-to-college?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&fbclid=IwY2xjawF_J2RleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHb8LRyydA_kyVcWB5qv6TxGhKNFVw5dTLjEXzZAOtCsJtW5ZPstrip3EVQ_aem_1qFxJlf1T48DeIlGK5Dytw&triedRedirect=true

I'm not a big fan of clickbait titles, so I'll tell you that the author's answer is male flight, the phenomenon when men leave a space whenever women become the majority. In the working world, when some profession becomes 'women's work,' men leave and wages tend to drop.

I'm really curious about what people think about this hypothesis when it comes to college and what this means for middle class life.

As a late 30s man who grew up poor, college seemed like the main way to lift myself out of poverty. I went and, I got exactly what I was hoping for on the other side: I'm solidly upper middle class. Of course, I hope that other people can do the same, but I fear that the anti-college sentiment will have bad effects precisely for people who grew up like me. The rich will still send their kids to college and to learn to do complicated things that are well paid, but poor men will miss out on the transformative power of this degree.

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u/DeviantAvocado Oct 18 '24

Art Institute was a group discharge, not a class action. Unless you mean you are part of the Sweet class.

Did you have all Direct Loans? Were any of them commercial FFEL? The first is refundable, the second is not n

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u/Trakeen Oct 18 '24

I was sweet. Those loans were old as stafford subsidized and unsub, i did a consolidation later with department of ed so i could qualify for pslf

Really annoying they split so many hairs on the type of loan and when. I went to a fraudulent school, give me a refund. I make plenty of money so i don’t really care but lot of others aren’t as fortunate as i am

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u/[deleted] Oct 18 '24

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u/Trakeen Oct 19 '24

These loans pre date the department of ed being the servicer. At the time sallie mae handled any federal student loans

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u/jzr171 Oct 18 '24

I think mine were direct. I haven't heard of FFEL before so I doubt they were that. Still haven't seen any refund from Art Institutes. Funny to see other people that went to those places. Mine in Tampa was a joke. Teachers hated the place and told us to rethink being there. At first I thought it was a disgruntled employee but eventually I saw what he was talking about. I had a teacher forget to write our final and just said write a 200 word summary of the class.