Joe Rogan isn't holding back on what he thinks about student loans. On a recent episode of "The Joe Rogan Experience," the podcaster laid into the entire system, calling it predatory, unfair, and fundamentally broken. His main gripe? Student debt is the one type of debt in America that follows you forever—even bankruptcy won't make it disappear.

"It's the one debt you cannot absolve in America even with bankruptcy," Rogan told his guest, British comedian Jimmy Carr. "It's a scam. It's the dirtiest thing ever."

Too Young to Understand the Trap

Rogan's criticism centered on the vulnerability of young borrowers who sign up for massive loans without really understanding what they're getting into. "You're too young to be connected to a $50,000 debt when you're 18," he said. "You don't know what it means. The fact that it's going to follow you around forever and haunt you... I think it's evil."

Carr agreed, arguing that many people were essentially sold worthless degrees. "We missold people some bullsh*t degrees," he said. Students worked hard expecting stability and homeownership, only to discover their degrees didn't deliver—especially in non-STEM fields. His solution? Cancel student debt entirely in both the U.S. and U.K., calling the situation deeply unfair to those who took a chance on higher education.

The comedian also pointed out an interesting contradiction: Americans resist socialism in principle but already accept it in practice. "Everyone agrees, right?" he said. "If your house burns down, we're going to have a fire service." His implication was that education debt relief shouldn't be that controversial if we already embrace collective solutions for other problems.

Rogan took the conversation even further, attacking corporate greed and publicly traded companies that prioritize endless growth over doing the right thing. "They never go, 'Guys, we're doing great. If we just make this amount of money every year, like, that's wonderful. Let's do good,'" he said. "They never are satisfied."

The White-Collar Employment Crisis

Rogan's rant hits differently when you look at the latest employment data. Recent U.S. Department of Labor numbers reported by Bloomberg reveal a troubling shift in the job market. Americans with four-year college degrees now make up 25.3% of the country's total unemployment—more than double the level seen during the 2008 financial crisis.

The numbers are stark. Over 1.9 million college-educated workers aged 25 and older are currently unemployed. Among younger workers aged 20 to 24, the jobless rate has jumped to 9.2%, up 2.2 percentage points in just one year. Analysts are calling it a "white-collar slowdown," and it's hitting the exact demographic that was promised a degree would be their ticket to success.

Venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya jumped into the conversation after the new data dropped. He called for the U.S. government to stop backing student loans entirely, saying the current system funnels people into "a financial quagmire they will never pay off to get a degree that increasingly has little to no value."

It's a harsh assessment, but the data backs up at least part of the concern. When college graduates are struggling to find jobs while carrying debt they legally cannot escape, the entire promise of higher education as a path to upward mobility starts to look shaky. The question isn't just whether college is worth it anymore—it's whether the financial structure around it was designed to trap people from the start.