“We have NOT painted our children with a picture of the future that is anything but “college.” Worse, we have made it like a “Promised Land of Canaan” as we force them into the legal prison system of K-12 education, putting way more value and emphasis on college than their degrees could ever possibly provide. The MSM, government, parents, and academia itself could warn these kids in a coordinated, uniform cacophony about the perils of the education bubble, but students would still line up to pay $100,000 for a “Masters in Puppetry” anyway.”
The advice to get the kids to go to college, is still sound advice, provided that they follow a STEM degree/career.
Problem is nowadays, the yutes expect ANY degree (wymyns studies, indigenous relationships, intersectional divisions, yadda yadda yadda) to be valuable, well paying and available, when the opposite is the reality of the situation.
Let’s make sure the USELESS programs are always pointed out. If the fools take loans to take useless studies, they own it, despite their whining, blatherings and entitlement syndrome
“Student debt is a crime!” The guy needs to turn himself in.
The huge irony in all this is that the grads of these diploma mills are so convinced of their high-priced intelligence, yet can’t seem to grasp that few – who are actually hiring – place any value in them. Concepts like ‘value’ aren’t in the curriculum, I suppose.
Poor stupid little fuggers.
Never did a hard days work in their lives. Never got a punch in the mouth. Never had to excel. Never turned over a stone as a matter of simple curiosity. And never had to think beyond me/now.
And never will, “all of the above”.
The solution is quite simple. Triple the tuition for those who attend the useless faculties and us the money for those who attend the STEM faculties. Taxpayers do not need to fund the “hobbies” of others.
I wonder. Is getting a proper education, actually acquiring marketable skills, a responsibility?
Oh I forgot, no responsibilities, only rights.
And another thing.
When baccalaureate degrees actually taught people how to and required them to think, to be skeptical and wary of bias, to question and to do research to learn something about the human experience, then BAs had some marketable value even if not directly relevant to required skills and experience, with employees willing to learn instead of looking for a free ride.
With that gone in favour of doctrinaire grievance mongering, virtue signaling and judgmental confirmation bias, no employee wants any of these whiners on their payroll.
“Education is a right!”
Did somebody ban you from the public library? Or the internet? It’s called the Information Age for a reason. It takes a person of tremendous sloth and ignorance to prevent themselves from receiving an education.
Any other reading of your imaginary ‘right’ ends up as “Teachers should be slaves!”. Because, y’know, someone has to provide that education.
Of course, that’s not what his sign means. What it really means is that “A Diploma is a right!”. And what he thinks it means is “I’m entitled to a high paying job because I’m special and shut up!”
Well, cupcake – two problems. The first is that most of those ‘degrees’ are worthless in the real world, and you’ll be spending the rest of your life flipping burgers to pay it off.
The second problem is that universities are on the verge of being outright diploma-mills already, making those diplomas border on worthlessness TODAY. If tomorrow everyone receives a diploma because they’re ‘entitled’ to it, then that diploma and a $5 bill will get you an overpriced coffee from the snobby leftist cafe you’ll be working for the rest of your life.
This is a consequence of running post-secondary institutions as businesses and treating the students as “customers”.
Some 30 years ago, governments cut back on post-secondary educational funding, forcing the institutions looked for ways to make money. One result was that those places started raising tuitions and they also offered more crapola courses in order to get the bums into seats.
For example, I heard of one college that offered a rodeo program, the rationale being that if it didn’t do it, someone else will. That’s hardly an example of educational responsibility, now is it?
But not all the money that was raised in that way went to keeping the lights on. In fact, it doesn’t appear as if that was ever an issue for many institutions. Instead, it went to salaries and, as I heard, bonuses. Along with that came an increase in the bureaucracy in those places and the people that were hired to fill those positions needed to be paid.
As well, the senior administrators began acting like corporate directors and were often obsessed with leaving a “legacy”, usually a building or something or other which either bore their name or for which they were responsible.
At the place where I used to teach, a former president’s pet project was adding an extension to the main building. He hoped for donations from alumni, staff, and corporations but he didn’t get enough. Conveniently at the same time, the provincial government reduced its post-secondary educational funding.
When the teaching staff’s contract was re-negotiated, we were forced to accept a reduction from earlier, with the government’s cutback being used as an excuse. Soon after that, there just happened to be enough extra money in the institution’s budget to finish that project and when the next contract was up for renewal–son of a gun!–the staff all got a nice raise.
Coincidence? (Yeah, right.) By the way, few of my colleagues, if any, believed the story about the salary reduction being a result of government funding shortfall.
So it isn’t just the snowflakes that are to blame for the debt situation.
I have to confess I am not your typical conservative. My conservatism is mostly based on an intellectual admiration for the Founding Fathers and their political philosophy, and an inborn strong individualism.
When I was young, I was more the wild eyed romantic, searching for Keats’ truth and beauty. To me, truth was physics, and beauty was poetry. My muses were Urania (as close as I can make it) and Erato. I thought of attending university as sitting at the feet of Socrates, and never as preparation for a career. Fortunately I made one concession to the real world, and that was recognizing I could write poetry without a degree, but not pursue physics. So I did have a degree or three in a STEM field, and a career in aerospace engineering. Fortuitous circumstances and some due diligence gave me a comfortable retirement, for that I am grateful. But I would have been more than satisfied subsisting in a garret, surviving on barely adequate appreciation for my poetry readings.
So I am not going to pontificate about young people making bad career choices. The major difference was I was able to do it on scholarships, and therefore not owe a penny at the end of my academic career. And I was realistic enough to pursue the career in engineering rather than as lecturer in a fourth rate state college. In fact, the former turns out to be much more intellectually satisfying as well as monetarily. And I always recognized my dreams were my own, and never expected anyone else to support them, much less demand. Since few are lucky enough to have dreams become reality, at some point youthful dreams must accede to reality.
early 20s: pay my student debt
early 30s: pay my day care
early 40s: cut my taxes
early 50s: holy crap. I haven’t saved a penny
early 60s: pay my pension
early 70s: pay my health care
early 80s: I should have paid more attention to my health and finances
Total V1 shutdown on 2018-03-31…is that bad?
The major difference was I was able to do it on scholarships, and therefore not owe a penny at the end of my academic career.
When I was an undergrad, my parents paid for about 60% of my expenses. That was their gift to me, something they planned for since I was a young boy. The remainder I made up from what I saved from my summer jobs, 3 of them spent in an oil refinery.
During my second time there, I worked with pipefitters and welders. It wasn’t my first choice but I can honestly say that I earned my money that summer, including a lot of overtime. It was hard, dirty, and often dangerous, but I not only learned a lot which would help me after I finished my degree, I was able to pay for a lot of books with my earnings the following term.
Unfortunately, actual physical labour, such as cutting and threading pipe or carrying tools and welding cable up the side of a distillation column (both of which I did), appears to be something that those who pursue “studies” degrees hold in disdain. Such activities are seen as demeaning and suitable only for the “little people”.
Later, as a grad student, I paid for most of my expenses out of my own pocket because I worked in industry as an engineer and saved my money. That was one reason it took me more than 20 years to earn my Ph. D.
“Education is a right”
For sure.
It takes dedicated wilful blindness to avoid the lessons life will teach you.
Some students of the School of Hard Knocks manage to remain ignorant and aggrieved to the very end.
Today we are living the success of government institutionalized education.
So many people,absolutely certain they know so many things that are not so.
“Everybody knows” is modern speak for no bloody clue.
The coming clue sticks are gonna hurt.
Actual physical labor in reality is more suitable for literally the “big people.” Unfortunately I am one of the “little people”, and though in my youth I worked out with weights to make myself strong for my weight, physically many things such as you mentioned would be beyond me on a full work day, even though I did do plumbing as much as possible when I had apartments. And of course the progs pretend to hold such activities in disdain because they are completely beyond their ability. Just like they pretend to hold math, for instance, in disdain.
I have great admiration for people who have succeeded having started with little, by excelling at whatever worthwhile endeavor, especially those I cannot do, such as welding (which I have never done) or music (I cannot carry a note). My cousin never finished high school, but through sheer hard work and determination had already owned five restaurants thirty years ago. Up to five years ago he still got up at four in the morning every day to personally get the freshest vegetables from the produce market. God made each of us differently, and we just have to use whatever He gave us to the best of our abilities. God didn’t give my cousin too much book smart, but if wealth is a measure of success, he sure is more successful than his cousins (my brother and I) who hold all those fancy degrees. That’s something the progs will never understand.
learn how to read, do it voraciously, then you will not need a useless piece of paper from a government indoctrination centre.