Midweek Takes #10

8/18's small thoughts and links

How We Measure Things Matters.

I am part of the problem, or at least that’s what the numbers will tell you. I’m buried in student loan debt and the spotty job market for my terminal degree continues to rear its ugly head. It’s likely that I will have to combine my entrepreneurial spirit with a deep desire to serve the public good, to make good on any sort of economic future—one where I’m not living with my mom or dad at 40.

I don’t give a shit.

In a pair of articles that have dropped like lead feathers in the past two months, William Deresiewicz (for NYMag) and Melissa Korn and Andrea Fuller (for the Wall Street Journal) have made the case that, in some circumstances—and in some more than others—earning a Masters’ degree simply doesn’t add up. There’s just no hope for the marginal income to outpace debt service over time. Millennials and Zoomers fall for some sort of debt-burden “trap,” without a real plan for how to earn after school.

I’m not saying this isn’t a real problem, and I’m …