Rodney

The article really underrates the impact of student loans. If you successful enter a higher-paying profession like IT, maybe you'll be able to put money away and pay off the loans.

But if you're, for example, going into some worthy profession that doesn't pay so well, how the heck are you going to put money away _and_ pay off those loans, much less have something resembling a life much less start a family for the first five-ten years after school? If ever?

Some professions like teaching do offer a pension for those that stay the long haul. But even then I've seen a lot of people leave the profession because even with retirement theoretically covered, there wasn't enough to lead a life, buy a house, raise a family, or anything else.

You can say, well, then, they shouldn't choose to be teachers. Maybe so, but then society's in trouble -- or now only people who are already well off can make a life as teachers in some areas. Which means, again, that society's in trouble.

To paraphrase somebody else, you can't live your whole life for the last 20 years of your life. All the rules in the article are well and good, but the fact is that society has changed over the last 30 years, and the individual has to handle much more by himself or herself than he or she had to. (People had pensions, tuition was close to free or cheap aid was easily available, medical insurance was easy to get) And individual virtue can only do so much to counter society-wide changes.

All that said, those lattes _do_ add up :-).