edit: LOOOL read up on US universities. Yeah ok... I thought it was like over here: You want to become an engineer so you study engineering. You want to become a doctor so you study medicine (for like 10 years or something) You want to become a history teacher so you study history + something else + paedagogics. But just studying some bs for the hell of it is ill-advised, obviously lol.
Yep from what I understand an much larger percentage of the US population goes to a 4 year university than in Europe. Which sounds good, but it used to be that getting a uni degree almost guaranteed a good job. Then more and more people started going to university and taking out loans to do it. As a result, there were more and more people seeking the same amount of jobs that required a uni degree.
So, now in order to get a good job you pretty much need a master's degree. Even then there's still people with M.A.s that are unemployed. And since people aren't finding well paying jobs, they aren't able to pay back their college loans. When they do find jobs they can't spend money to help the economy because they have to spend it paying off their debt instead. Hence we have massive youth unemployment and low standards of living.
I'm currently one of these unemployed college grads so I know all about it.