But I Overpaid in Tuition, and Education Should Be Free!
I posted on Facebook, in the wake of Biden granting amnesty to trillions of dollars of student-loan debts, a long diatribe on the “cause and effect” of canceling lots of debt, and handing the bill to
A. people who already paid theirs off, and
B. those who couldn’t afford college, and
C. those who worked two jobs to finish college without debt, and/or worked two jobs to put their kids through college without debt.
(I’m in the “C” category on both counts, my education and my kids’. You can read that post here.)
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The Cost of “Free” Money
One guy said, “I don’t like this post, because I have $150k in law-school debt. They should lower the interest rate to zero.”
(I guess they didn’t teach economics in his undergrad program, because he may not understand what happens to the economy when there’s a zero interest rate AND soaring inflation. FREE MONEY is how we got in this predicament. People abuse it, and governments abuse it.
In fact, the academia industry abuses it, too. From 1980 to today, the average home price has gone up 413%. However, the cost of the average college degree has gone up 1200%(!) With a lesser, not greater, increase in corresponding salary for graduates!
Several Millennials complained in the thread that “education should be free!” or “I got a 4-year business degree and can’t get a job, so I shouldn’t have to pay for my education!”
We have to get clear on who the enemy is, here–which isn’t each other. The sad fact is, those getting their student loans “forgiven” still have to pay them — but FOREVER.
You see, the government uses “loan forgiveness” to raise their taxes, which will likely never go back down.
So, their debt moves from one column, where they can pay it off — to another column, where they can’t.
Even mainstream media has recently undertaken a campaign to undermine the value of a college education.
If you’re willing, join me for a moment in considering a line of reasoning for which I was often dubbed a “conspiracy theorist” in March 2020. Here is my theory, with evidence:
A Possible Future: Endless Education … But No More Degrees
The World Economic Forum, whose “Young Global Leaders” were raised up under the tutelage of founder Klaus Schwab, wants a new global order where college degrees go away, and people are constantly in school, but without obtaining degrees.
The future that they envision includes the “Public-Private Partnership” (another Socialist Schwab concept), which wants you constantly learning, and being awarded certificates that make you a valuable contribution to the global order.
(The Public-Private Partnership both eliminates small businesses and consolidates and essentially merges the government with huge billion-dollar companies, in all industries.)
The Resources section below shows you a number of very recent media articles that blow the whistle on academia, which has become a mega-billion-dollar enterprise where your child’s tuition lines the pockets of universities’ tax-free “endowments.”
Of particular interest in the Resources, watch Valuetainment’s Patrick Bet-David compare the “endowments” of elite universities, to some of America’s wealthiest companies.
Here’s the Cliff’s Notes version: universities are not so much investing tuition in better education, as they are driving up their revenues, and becoming very wealthy, in the end.
If Only I Had a Parenting “Do-Over”
My own conclusions are that if I had a “parenting do-over,” I’d:
1. Homeschool my children, rather than delegating them to the public-school indoctrination camps.
(Even if that meant doing what my mother did — locking us in the basement for 3 hours of no-television “quiet time” every day in the summer, and taking us to the library each week, to leave with a stack of books on whatever we were interested in learning about. One summer, for instance, I read at least 40 biographies of Native American leaders.)
2. Find opportunities for my children, in high school and beyond, to “apprentice” with someone who wants free labor, in exchange for teaching them about their business.
(I’m actually poking around with colleagues, to help my youngest drop out after three years of college, and get an unpaid internship, as he wants to be in internet marketing. Yes, I’m an internet marketer, and I could help him, but I think he’d be an excellent student–of someone who is not his mother.)
In Rich Dad Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki taught millions to get inside a corporation before you start your first business, and learn everything you can about every department — from how to read a balance sheet, to marketing, to operations.
OR, for a child not inclined toward academic or white-collar work, a child good with their hands or who likes to take things apart:
3. Encourage them to learn a trade, like welding, plumbing, or electrical work
Unfortunately, I learned everything I did about higher education by making ALL the mistakes. I do not regret the three degrees I pursued, and even learning boring things I never used (like AP Calculus and Physics), but I had to unlearn a lot of indoctrination, over the course of years.
Many people never do “unlearn” from the indoctrination camps.
And, my children scorn the collective wisdom of their elders, and even the people who wrote the amazing, unprecedented U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. One of my children said to me, when I mentioned the founders of the U.S.: “You mean those rich, racist white assholes?”
That’s the pithiest way I know, to give you an example of indoctrination. He was likely taught that the Civil War was fought over slavery, too, and that most of the Black folks in America came from Africa as slaves (both false).
Whom do I have to thank for the shocking realization that the higher education I paid tens of thousands of dollars for (thankfully, my kids went to state universities, or that would be $100k’s), taught my children to scorn the life experience and opinions of their parents? The PhD faculty, teaching them things like “Finance” and “Business Management” that they learned only from textbooks, people who have never had to actually produce anything in the free-market system.
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RESOURCES:
Valuetainment’s Patrick Bet-David reviews how the ROI of a college education has decreased, while it has increased in cost 1200% and the university endowments are wealthier than America’s top corporations:
Millennials are the first generation to prove a college degree may not be worth it, and Gen Z may be next
https://fortune.com/2022/08/30/millennial-versus-gen-x-college-degree-value-employment-earnings/
Is college even worth it? Here's how to decide
Why is college so expensive in the US?
https://www.newsnationnow.com/us-news/education/why-is-college-so-expensive/
1st - Breaking contract law is wrong at every level, and a horrible precedent. That the POTUS is doing it unchallenged is jaw dropping. 2nd - This nothing short of buying votes from the brainwashed victims of our government’s indoctrination system. The very worst aspect of the civil rights act was the Feds taking over state run school systems in the name of civil rights. 3rd - History is only of value if it is first known and second learned from . Over the past 50 years we’ve watched the political, the economy, the religious, the military, and brainwashed society working together to bring us to this. Now we have some hard decisions to make.