Imagine a large corporate machine mobilized to get you to buy something you don’t need at a tremendously inflated cost, complete with advertising, marketing, and branding that says you’re not hip if you don’t have one, but when you get one you discover it’s of poor quality and obsolete in ten months. That’s a BA.
When we see a welfare mom we assume she can’t find work, but when we see a hipster we become infuriated because we assume he doesn’t want to work but could easily do so– on account of the fact that he can speak well– that he went to college. But now suddenly we’re all shocked: to the economy, the English grad is just as superfluous as the disenfranchised welfare mom in the hood– the college education is just as irrelevant as the skin color. Not irrelevant for now, not irrelevant “until the economy improves”– irrelevant forever. The economy doesn’t care about intelligence, at all, it doesn’t care what you know, merely what you can produce for it. The only thing the English grad is “qualified” for in this economy is the very things s/he is already doing: coffeehouse agitator, Trader Joe’s associate, Apple customer………………………………………….. and spouse of a capitalist.
Of course I’m not happy about this, I like smart people, but that’s the new reality. There was a time where women went to college to get an MRS degree, and I am telling you that that time is today, there is nothing else of value in there. Sure, some college women go on to become doctors and CEOs, and some go on to become child pornographers and Salon writers, none of those things have anything to do with what happened in college. If you are going to college to get an education and not to meet guys, you are insane, literally insane, delusional, in reality one is never going to happen and the other is going to happen anyway, and you could have gotten both for free at a bookstore. Worked for me.
…”I have a degree.” No one assumes you’re smart because of it, so what was the point? You were tricked, your parents were tricked, your peers were tricked, your employers were not tricked at all. “There’s more to a college education than employability.” No there isn’t. I am not anti-liberal arts, I am all in on a classical education, I just don’t think there’s any possibility at all, zero, none, that you will get it at college, and anyway every single college course from MIT and Yale are on Youtube. Is that any worse than paying $15k to cut the equivalent class at State?
I’m really loving this blog; thanks to Shanna for sharing the link.