Yup. Boomers didn't have to spend a ton for themselves to go; college used to be way less expensive, even given inflation. And in their era, having a college degree used to be the path to getting a "better" job. So to them, it made perfect sense to tell this advice to their kids, and to insist as hard as possible that getting a degree was THE BEST OPTION for having a good / financially secure future.
They didn't know the employment landscape was changing; had already changed.
I know plenty of my peers didn't particularly want to go to college, but also didn't want to miss out on these mythic job opportunities/ let their parents down / be assumed to be "too stupid" to get into college.
The college landscape changed, too; the focus shifted primarily from, "we are here to educate" to, "we are here to wring every dollar we can from you." THAT'S why college got more expensive- GREED. Not because more people started attending, and by the way, WTF kind of logic is it to claim that schools got more expensive BECAUSE more people were giving them money??
what changed was the tax structure. back in the 1950s the us taxed the rich, and it worked. it paid for so much!! social programs, infrastructure (the interstate system, for one), education at all levels, including college. also the GI bill sent a lot of veterans to college who would not have gone otherwise, and they went into good paying professions which, guess what, paid those higher taxes. so the GI bill more than paid for itself. the greed that's been strangling our economy isn't coming from the universities, it's coming from the apalling tax breaks given to the people who make the most. look at the tax structure, if you want to see what is going on.
