Memo

[Mynock]

Everybody gets the same spiel in their last few years of high school: if you just go to college and get a degree (any old degree is fine, just pick something that looks easy) you'll be guaranteed a job that allows you to sit on your ass in an air conditioned office and make ridiculous amounts of money for doing virtually nothing. Which of course is bullshit, but kids are dumb enough to believe it because we now live in a society where "everyone's a winner" and you get a trophy just for trying.

So little Jane and little Johnny both dump a hundred grand into "Generic Executive Degree A12B". So does the other 3,000 kids that graduated with them. They fumble through with a C+ and then toddle off into the real world....where they are promptly knocked on their ass by reality.

See we've now "progressed" into the wonderful new world of the "service based economy", and what that translates into is the one guy who always got better grades than you and is willing to work 90 hours a week gets the executive job.....and the only other openings are for a Taco Bell counter girl to hand that guy his lunch and a janitor to empty his trash can every night when he goes home in to his big house. Jane and Johnny meanwhile get a shitty little apartment on the side of town that resembles downtown Baghdad, because they're getting fucked from both ends by being eyeball deep in debt and working shitty low paying jobs.

Fixing the problem doesn't involve more and/or cheaper education. It involves getting a lot of white collars dirty. Bring back the manufacturing base by manipulating imports so that it's cost effective to make things here again. Bring back the jobs that gave people an honest days pay for an honest days work without them having to blow a hundred grand on a piece of paper first. Let them enter the work force right out of school and debt free, and if they're capable work their way up (which of course takes work, but doesn't cost anything) the corporate ladder without half their income going to monthly payments on college loans.

BTW, not hating on higher education, pursuit of knowledge is a noble cause and all, what I'm saying is there should be an option for people who don't want or cannot afford the pursuit of knowledge to life a decent life. That's the only thing we don't have now that we had before.

[QuicksandMania]

Read WORTHLESS by Aaron Clarey to learn all about effective alternatives to the college education trap.