My generation knows all-too well that it is nearly impossible to find full time work. I’ve always had the idea that today’s youth are pressured to go to college because it’s the only way to get a “good paying job.” They say that a college degree is the equivalent of what a high school diploma was just 20 years ago. The problem is that America has dramatically shifted from secondary sector production to tertiary sector production - that is, from an economy based on the processing of raw materials to a service based economy. With so many of the jobs that our parents held being outsourced, a large portion of America’s youth have to look forward to not much more than non-union, part time jobs, with poor pay and poor benefits, college degree or not. 

Millions of college students work hard to graduate only to face the world bankrupt and jobless. Student loans are necessary to cope with the crippling price of books and tuition. With the lack of well paying jobs, the only solution is to fall further down the hole of debt using credit to bide more time. Paying off student loans combined with rent, car insurance, utility bills, interest on credit and so much more, the youth of today face a lifetime of financial strife. 

Universal, quality education for all is a right. Young people - tomorrow’s workers - must demand an end to tuition fees and loans.  We must struggle for living grants and life-long learning for all, and the for nationalization of the credit card companies that prey on the poor.

Of course, by exploiting us as it does, the capitalist class continues to do what Marx described over 150 years ago: “creating its own gravediggers.” An entire generation guaranteed to end up bankrupt is an entire generation that will bring down the capitalist system of exploitation, a system in which the youth have no future.