Saturday, June 21, 2014

How "College For Everyone" Is Bad For Society

     Recently, the issue of student loan rate reductions for college students at the expense to taxpayers of billions of dollars, has been a hot topic. Maybe it is the looming mid-term elections for which Democrats need an energized base, of which greedy, entitled  students are a major part. Or maybe it is the diversionary benefit the Democrats can gain by diverting the attention of students away from the fact that Democrat policies have made it more unlikely that graduates will find gainful employment once their free ride is over. One thing is for sure, taxpayers, many of whom struggle from paycheck to paycheck, should not be compelled to support students who have the next 45 years to payback their loans.
     Beyond the morally bankrupt position that the privileged young should be supported by the hard-working old, is the data that suggests college for everyone comes at a high price to society. When one considers that half those who enroll in college, almost all of whom receive loans at taxpayer expense, drop out and never finish, that is a vault full of money left on the table. Of those who actually suffer the insufferable indoctrination by professors who would be more at ease in the company of Karl Marx than James Madison, sixty percent are employed after college in jobs that require no college diploma.
     An additional detriment to society as a result of the "college for everyone" mentality is the shortage of professionals in the trades. Not having usual contact with those in the trades, many may not realize that plumbers, electricians, carpenters, and other tradesmen have seen their numbers decrease significantly, as the need for such professions has increased with the rising population. But the young of today, and of the last couple of decades, have been convinced by Leftist politicians that they should not have to expend the energy, nor dirty their hands, doing the kind of work that the trades require.
     The Left in this country has made matriculation into their seminaries, called universities, a necessity for working in fields that only 50 or 60 years ago may not have required a formal education. I know a man, for instance, that is in his eighties, but when he was in his twenties he read everything he could about his passion, which was engineering. He proved he could do the job and was hired by Boeing Corporation, a feat today that would not be possible without going through the official college indoctrination.
     The fact is that while everyone complains, and the Left demonizes, "Big Oil," the price of their product has only increased a fraction of what education has over the last forty years. No one ever talks about "Big Education," at least not on the Left. And with a success rate of only fifty percent, universities would never survive in the free market like other private enterprises.
     The more responsible thing for us to be doing rather than encouraging every child to attend college, is teaching them how to recognize their strengths and weaknesses. If they have an aptitude for study, then fine, send them to college. But if they have mechanical aptitude, encourage more apprentice programs from which they can gain the skills needed to succeed in the trades.
     But the Left is not about securing equality of opportunity, but about securing parity of political thought. Hence, send everyone to college so they can be immersed in that political thought. It is not what is best for society, every student, or even those who do attend college, to have government raising tuitions, decimating the trades, and bankrupting taxpayers in order to consolidate power and perpetuate singularity of thought.

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