Hit Me, Part 2

In The Last Professors, Frank Donoghue excavates the nature of the long standoff between the academic and corporate world, dating back to the Gilded Age of the late 1800s, when industrial capitalists (or when you’re from the anthracite coal region: robber barons) began to attack higher education as useless. Academics, then, go on the defensive: The humanities and liberal arts have immeasurable value, if not immediately economically apparent, and need to be fought for. With the heartless nature of corporate mentally, this is absolutely correct, but there is a deeper issue here that I’m not sure will be discussed.

Growing up, my generation was told: get to college, you’re set for life. Maybe your parents and very likely your grandparents didn’t have that chance, so our generation is the time to make it right, taking that step beyond the blue collar that was always dreamed about. Social waves generally hit my small home town 20-30 years after their rise, so while Mad Men made millions at mid-century, our families were hoping that their factory didn’t lay them off. But I digress.

Truth is, at the turn of the century, Carnegie’s assessment of higher education may very well have been right. This doesn’t mean he wasn’t a cold-hearted prick, but we’re all subject to the influences of our environment, and Carnegie was a self made man from humble beginnings. Universities back then were only for the wealthy (where now, they’re only for those who don’t mind being slowly milked for interest on their never-ending student loans). It was the “old boy” network, where wealthy sons could go off to college to waste time as if they were living at a country club and come out with a Bachelor of bacchanalia. They could then go on to their life of aristocracy and maybe politics, and for all those without the money for college? Well, with enough social skill, ambition, and intellect they could still have a good shot at landing a good job without a college education.

Now that a college education is so widespread as to be expected for most careers, it’s a necessary rite of passage, whether or not one learns – or rather, remembers – anything. Don’t get me wrong, the more education for the masses, the better. I wish that every person would have the time, energy, and desire to keep educating themselves and read just as many books -- maybe ones that are even more practical -- once they are out of college. But nowadays we don’t even see how the business mind of universities has us as sitting duck-customers. For a middle class income, we must to go to college. Why? The shitty job market is one reason, but there is a much bigger one: We’re a huge revenue source. For example, when did the switch get flipped (or maybe its just been a steady transition) that post-graduate studies were a necessity to stay competitive in the job market?

Unfortunately, I’m speaking in terms more vague than I’d like. I’ve been reading non-stop of the underbelly of higher education, and my will to become a man of letters has waned as a result. How does this relate to yesterday’s post at all? Shit… what was it again…
Ah yes.

It is an unavoidable fact that most of us will have to take it on the chin numerous times in our life. Hopes will be dashed at the expense of current need, and long-term goals will appear too far to grasp. Refusal to submit may be our only source of fuel. But search for alternatives – they are out there. The collective unconscious becomes richer the more you try to access it, and while stories of others who have carved their own path may not be completely applicable to everyone, they prove that there are other ways. We can aspire to them if we are creative, innovative, and persistent enough to find them.

Or at least that’s what I keep telling myself. Double down on 11, beautiful babies.