The thing that struck me right off the bat was that the lead photo of this story is of 18-year-old with a PS5 and pretty sweet setup in his bedroom. I don't have anything deep to add to this, but if you can sit at home in your childhood bedroom indefinitely playing video games and working menial jobs, maybe the allure is there.
The lead image is there to direct the reader towards a specific way of thinking, similar in way that if the article has been about prison it would be an image of black young men dealing drugs. It is a narrative and implication that if "group X" did not choose to do that then the problem that group X has would not exist. The author could as easily chosen an lead imagine of the same person in a class room with a narrative that it is the school system that is failing to get the demographic to enroll, or an image of an college class photo to illustrate the lack of diversity and imply subtle blame on which ever demographic that would dominate the image.
"The author could as easily chosen an lead imagine of the same person in a class room"
Might vary where you live, but my understanding is that the author of a piece is not usually the one picking images and writing the headline. There are some instances where the writer and photographer are the same, but that's not the case here.
It's a story about males who aren't in college, so why would they have photos of males in school? Stats about "people considering not going to college" is not as compelling as this story with stronger stats about what people are actually doing, IMO.
Note that the focus of blame here is on the education system and then look at the image. The person in frame is the teacher, representing the Educational System, and the boy. The article mentions both college rates and high school dropout rates.
You are right that its generally not the author of the written text that chose the image, through the words I would describe if I was being a more technical correct about it would be authors of the article since an article rarely if ever now days has a single author. There is the author/s of the text, the editor, the proof readers, layout design, image selection, and each participated in creation the collaborated created work.
As you said, that's a different narrative with a different picture. OP's story is about individuals saying they feel lost, and then it shows them bumming around at home.
After I quit university and before I found my eventual career path back in the 90s, a relevant picture would've been me stuffing around on the computer as that's largely what I did (writing a book, playing Hextris, typing up things for my dad, seeing what a modem could do, etc).
We don't have a lot of details as to what "invests his money into crypto" means and how that is going. The article doesn't touch on his music and music production skills, both of which could be honed substantially with a further music education. They could also be honed a lot by playing in a band and committing to a lot of practice. People can be self taught, but it generally requires a lot of practice and purpose, and this article doesn't touch on whether or not he is doing that.
You can break into music production without a degree, of course, but it's going to be a challenge in the middle of nowhere Minnesota.
I mean of the choice is between that and crippling debt and a useless degree, he's making the objectively smart move.
The fact that they were able to buy things while living at home just drives the point home even more- he would not have the disposable income to make those purchases for many years if he decides to go to college.
Wut? Are those the only choices? Is there nothing in between? Lay off the drama. I don't feel like my degree was useless (and I'm not even working in the field I got a degree in) and I certainly didn't graduate with crippling debt.
Claiming survivorship bias really makes it sound like we are talking about something much riskier than getting a college degree. I didn't survive, I planned. I got a two year degree from a local community college for a fraction of the price that those same credit hours would have cost at a university. I then went on to a modest in-state University to complete my four year degree. I can't put a sexy Ivy League college, or private college, or even a top-tier state university on my resume now but I didn't graduate with crippling debt. That was the trade off I made.
Starting your professional career in debt is nobody's definition of "crippling debt". Whether 39k is too much student loan debt really depends on what the expected future earning potential is for a given degree. A quick search turns up plenty of resources that can help somebody make decisions about how much student loan debt they can comfortably or safely take on. Here is a teacher's guide[1] (it's a PDF link) from the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau one could use as a starting point.
Oh I completely agree it can be done. But let's consider- did you have children? Were you able to love at home? Did you have to work full-time? Did you need financial aid? There are just a whole lot of variables here.
If you go to college broke, and come out in debt, and are then in debt for years after (I don't know offhand the average) then yes that's crippling debt. When figured against future earnings and actual take-home profit, how will those numbers work out for someone like that? Chances are, not well. Not everyone can just 'learn to program' to get a cushy 120k+/yr job. Also some people with families take longer than 2 years just for an associates degree. This is really survivorship bias wkth N=1.
He works as a landscaper in Minnesota, which I presume does not offer robust employment year round. Even if he could work all seasons doing landscaping, his pay would come out to $26,000 a year, assuming he takes no days off.
I am not sure this is a smart move. It seems like he is hoping his music career pans out, but we aren't given a lot of insight into his talent level there.
That's what I immediately thought, "How convenient, a photo that suits article's the narrative: that all young men are NEETs (not in employment, education, or training). I suppose they couldn't have shown a productive young man as it would be antithetical to the author's thesis.",
