University Peons: The New Class Without a Middle Class

Graduates with no future: the rise of the university peon class

The middle class has died, and university graduates are its first gravediggers. This thesis, defended with bluntness in unconventional economic analysis circles, argues that the mortgage-plus-low-salary combination has created a new social stratum: the university peon. It is not a symptom, it is the structure.

The end of the middle class due to housing

The housing bubble did not just spike property prices; it redefined class membership. A mortgaged person is not middle class, analysts argue: they are a debtor working for the bank. And graduates, with their degrees, are now the cheapest and most educated workforce in the market. While their parents' generation—aged 45 to 65, uneducated, earning 4,000 euros, and working eight hours—clings to a inherited status, 30-year-old engineers work hard for just over a thousand euros. The paradox is perfect: more preparation, less purchasing power.

Mass university, peon factory

The diagnosis repeats: the university has become a 'money extractor' issuing degrees without control. Degrees in Philology or Law are saturated, while engineering fields empty out because 'it is not worth it.' Yet even engineers who find work—an annual gross salary of 24,000 euros is considered 'decent'—face a reality: Spanish companies do not demand high qualifications. A cum laude MIT engineer will be as useful as an Oracle course: little. 'In Spain, none of that is done,' laments an analysis circulating among the disillusioned.

The system that rewards academic incompetence

Anecdotes pile up. Professors base notes on El País clippings, 'Maria' subjects like ping-pong credits, study plans copied from other degrees, and an 'funnel' that retains students to charge second enrollments. 'Zero problems to enter, all to finish.' The university system, far from being a social elevator, acts as an income filter. And those who manage to graduate leave with a degree the market treats as wet paper.

Where are we heading?

The announced crisis—this thread was written before the 2008 crash—has been fulfilled beyond measure. The bubble burst, salaries did not recover, and precarity consolidated. Yet the official narrative continues to blame young people for not trying hard enough. Those who analyze the data know the problem is not supply, but demand. While the Spanish economy needs peons to service mortgages, university degrees will continue to trade at a discount. And the new social class, that of graduates with degrees, will only grow.

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