Government is actively engaged in creating a bubble of college costs and acquisition. We have heard recently that half of the graduates in 2012 are unemployed or underemployed. As Obama talks about lower student loan rates, students do not emerge able to pay off those debts. I am disappointed that Mitt Romney, who is proud of his alleged but so far undemonstrated business saavy, has bought into the same inaccurate notions. College isn't a guarantee of anything except great expense.
Even when I was in school, I saw prices rise. Before I attended, rates rose at a more or less steady and low rate of around 5% annually. While away on my mission, those costs jumped inexplicably a whopping 25% for room and board. I got less board for my money, and I was crammed into a room not much larger than a prison cell for which I paid the equivalent of $400/month (it actually looked a lot like Tom Riddle's room in the asylum; this is the size of a double, but I had a single). My students pay more now than I paid in graduate school. Every year, their tuition goes up, and the Board of Regents adds fees. However, my pay not only remains static but has also been capped and then cut. I have no idea where the money is going, because it's not going into the classroom.
No matter how good the cause sounds, we are never going to have enough money to pay for everything that we might like all the time. We have to make decisions. The trouble is that the kids who graduate cannot find jobs. We need to grow the economy so that after they graduate there is not only something commensurate with their education to do but also something that will help them extricate themselves from the shackles of student loan debt. Obama's student loan program is not a favor for students; it's a new form of financial bondage. Yet, he will pat himself on the back and gain accolades. Even the undergraduate that works in my department thinks Obama is awesome because of the student loan program. Will he think that way when he's asking people if they'd like fries with that?
When it comes to other expenses, the leftists insist on capping it, but when it comes to students, they want to force as many people through as they possibly can. Many of the students are ill-prepared or ill-disposed to success. Part of that is attitudinal and a matter of maturation, but some of it is endemic to the system because the selection relies too much on grades (which show an ability to regurgitate information) rather than knowledge. Programs such as Advanced Placement and the International Bacculaureat increasingly turn to anti-American, anti-capitalist, anti-value literature and curriculum and do not prepare people for jobs as much as they prepare students at a faster pace than ever before to hate America, her values, her traditions, and the way by which it has become a force for power. I can hardly go a day without hearing something on the internet about how young people, particularly abroad, but also here, hate America, think her people suck and wish she would just go away. I get to tell students far more often than I like things like, "When you retake this class, make sure this experience helps you do better" because their minds are not in the game. It's something they believe they ought to do, must do, and are entitled to do.
Then there are those who game the system. Back when I was in college, I worked hard all summer to save as much money as I could only to hand it all over to the university. Now, to get financial aid, some students declare themselves independent of their parents, and become technically destitute, getting scholarships, loans, and food stamps. Where are their parents? My parents were, according to the FAFSA, expected to be able to contribute money to my college experience, whether they could afford to or not, because I was their dependent. Whoever thinks these kids are seriously independent, particularly when they are on the dole as it were for everything, needs to have their head examined. Some of them do not intend to achieve; those who do graduate often move back in with their parents, assuming they ever graduate, because they do not intend to become productive. Why should they? They may intend to rack up debt, live at our expense, and then die never having paid back the money they borrow just like so many people who 'bought' homes have done.
Enough is enough. Yes, it would be nice if we could afford to let everyone do whatever they like and if money was no object. We do not live in that world. We live in a world where things have a cost, and because the students don't have to pay money, they also seem unwilling to pay the other costs associated with EARNING a degree. I do not give grades; students earn them. We have Harry Reid out procuring land for CSN but for which we have no money to build buildings; we have buildings and remodeling in buildings that were adequate; we have some people earning paychecks that their ratings as professors do not justify; and when someone like me does something that saves money, they just spend it somewhere else, usually on something wasteful.
The joke is on us. They promise free education for everyone, but they never promise that it will be useful or that there will be anything for them to do when they graduate. The irony is that some of the greatest entrepreneurs (in terms of total wealth not in terms of actual worth to civilization) are college dropouts who started their own businesses. I am not convinced that those who endorse college intend for you to be successful as much as they intend for you to be conditioned by the educational process.
There are good professors. I consider myself one of that number. As a whole, however, I think college costs our culture more than just the money and far more than we realize. It prepares people to be somnambulent rather than independent. It encourages equality at the expense of freedom. It encourages sameness under the guise of diversity. We are all of mixed culture unless you come from some isolated and backward tribe on the outer reach of civilization. It is time to act serious and be concerned about what they are doing and why. It is time to stop buying the premise hook, line and sinker as if what they promise will happen even if it can. College costs are skyrocketing, and I am not convinced that they will bring the promised return. For graduates of 2012, you will find that out soon if you have not already.
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