A middle-class kid in 2014 is looking at real unemployment for his age group of pushing 27%, exorbitant prices for a degree that guarantees him nothing, a high school diploma that barely counts for anything, a military engaged in endless war for as long as he can remember, and a peerage system that basically requires him to apprentice to his trade after blowing five or six figures spending five years learning nothing even vaguely applicable to his future life.

God, this is too true.

I was quite unmotivated in highschool. Here in the Netherlands we have a different (imho better but I'm probably biased) education system where you take a standardized test at the end of elementary school. The teacher's advice combined with the test score decides what level of highschool you go to. The highest level (VWO) gets you into universities. I aced the standardized test with 86/88 points.

What this system meant for me that all I had to do was ride it all out. I knew that my high school diploma is basically worthless, only getting it meant I could go to universities. On top of that, I had high school one or two years longer than most of my peers from elementary school.

So now that I'm a university student I finally get to learn what I love, and if all goes well without any debt. I think I'm one of the lucky. It's even one of the more practical studies, giving me software skills (GIS) besides a better world perspective, which is not that applicable to life yet. I see the dooming unemployment rates appearing on the horizon, but I'll fight it with a killer CV that I'm building now. There is no guarantee, unless you're into engineering or IT.

At the same time I see multiple of my friends with the future you described. People who are racking up massive debts, not really interested in the subject, not going out of their way to learn something practical. Riding it out like I rode out highschool. They haven't realized that the freedom of the 'real world' is already upon them; that they can shape their lives right now. Instead, they patiently wait orders and make finals. I wonder how they'll feel when they're let into the 'real world', where you're not dragged along to the next hoop to jump through.