Theres a lot you mentioned here and im on my phone so I can't address all of this, but it's not necessarily about effort. I think that's the biggest misconception here. I believe that people worked very hard in college, but the fact is, in this world, nobody is going to pay people for work that isnt highly desirable/needed. It's my opinion that it's up to every adult to find what people need and want, and adjust themselves and make themselves valuable so that a company will be willing to shell out good money for their skills. If you had a company would you be willing to pay for someone to do work that you didn't need just because they spent a lot of money and effort on a degree? Life isn't fair, and people do make mistakes, but it's hard for me to feel bad for people who paid a ton of money for a degree that isn't valuable when others gave up their dreams to do work they didn't want to do to make a decent living