IS COLLEGE EDUCATION A TRUST FACTOR?

Do you trust people with more college education than you?

The old rule was get a college education and get a good job.

A college degree opened doors.

A high school diploma used to be the ticket to success.

What changed?

Boomers used to work high school education level jobs during their summer college break.

They signed up for fish factories, saw mills, anything that paid tuition.

With student loans, work study, and frugal living, it worked out.

Along the way they learned the joke about, “Hey college boy, go clean the bathroom,” or “Hey college boy, tell us how smart you are.”

College boys learned to take it in stride, learned how to clean that bathroom, how to make fun of higher education.

What changed?

Some of them quit college after learning what it takes to buy a house, a boat, and a truck.

Work the saw mill swing shift and it’s all there with no pesky loans to pay back while you make your way up the ladder of success.

Some young men dropped out of high school to get a head start on the rest of their class.

They knew what it took to make it in the world they knew.

The longer students hung in there with college, the more the goal of higher education changed.

Graduation was a goal to reach so you’d never have to sit in another classroom listening to an old fart bored out of his mind repeat the same crap he’s gurgled out since he got tenure.

That’s college education with a bad attitude.

At some point attaining a degree became a race between the criminal act of clocking your professor with a book bag, or turning into one of Them.

The longer you stayed enrolled, the sharper your vision became.

Colleges have job services, just like the the state employment office.

Colleges have blue collar jobs on campus just like the jobs high school diplomas promised.

That grass on the common doesn’t cut itself.

What changed?

Too many smart people started calling a college degree the NEW high school diploma.

Too many insecure parents bought into that notion with, “My children will all have college degrees, the one I don’t have,” as if a college education is the secret to happiness.

Since we all enjoy having something to look down on, college degrees weren’t good enough, not when grad school snobs started saying things like, “Honestly, I don’t know what I’d be if I didn’t get my Masters, (or Doctorate.)

Chances are pretty good you’d still be the same jerk, you’d just have more references.

Have you met college students who stay in school just because their parents will pay?

How about students who stay in school to avoid the draft? That was a boomer deal.

Rare is the student who chugs through class after class, term after term, year after year, because they love learning new stuff.

Those are the adults who win Trivial Pursuit.

Once you look in the mirror and acknowledge that smart people come in all shapes and sizes, with an assortment of paper defining them, you’ve gained the educational advantage.

College won’t make you a better person, but it might help you disguise the sort of person you are.

Think about that the next time you hear from University of Southern New Hampshire.