Who's Bright Idea???

So what genius came up with "minimum wage?"  I mean honestly how can a person determine the minimum about of work required to get minimum pay?  In this day and age any job is better than no job, and many people are settling for jobs that they are over qualified for just to make try and make ends meet.  People are choosing to become "professional students" in hopes of bettering themselves and becoming better qualified for a higher wage position.  During my recent job search I discovered that one needs a bachelors degree for mere general office and administrative work!  This disturbs me.  Education at the University level is no where near free in this country and the majority of us pursuing degrees are not fortunate enough to obtain full scholarships or have college funds waiting for us.  What does that leave? Loans or working several odd jobs to pay our way through school.  Whether the loans be private or federal, the interest rates aren't pretty and with the job selection and pay being what it is, it remains that we debtors will be paying off these loans for the next several years to come.  Who's bright idea was our educational system?
It's one vicious cycle, that empties into the black hole.  Without education, we are expected to be a productive member of society making minimum wage, living paycheck to paycheck.  With an education we are expected to get a decent job, live the "American Dream" and pay back the thousands of dollars in school loans at the same time all for the sake of bettering ourselves.  But before you can land that dream job you are subjected to a series of No's because of the lack of experience right out of school, a credit check (which usually isn't stellar coming out of school), and the debt collectors giving you a mere 6 months after graduation to pay up!
So what happens??? We settle, and accept what we can when we can for the sake of "getting by for now."  Odd jobs that don't help make us more marketable or competitive in our chosen fields and suck us further into the black hole.  Minimum wage jobs should not exist.  The majority of those that do work for minimum wage do more than a minimum amount of work and do not have minimum bills and minimum needs to survive.
Under appreciated, over worked, and under paid.