FICRY

According to the FICRY-fueled media, these dark economic times should have us reexamining our priorities on everything from fashion to finance to friendship. But until recently, there was perhaps one bubble that had not yet popped, one industry that had not yet been accused of scamming us out of our savings: higher education. Sure, in the past those on the fringes of society had suggested that an Ivy League degree was not all it’s cracked up to be, but now that we’re all looking at our bank accounts and wondering where the money went, more and more of us are beginning to realize: with the money we spent on our Bachelors or Masters, we could have bought ourselves a small (albeit shabby) island in the South Pacific. What’s more, the money wasn’t ever really ours to begin with, and now that we’ve taken out massive loans to finance the respectable degree from a liberal arts college that hasn’t gotten most of us much further than a position of glorified secretary (or “gasp!” intern) at a variety of useless and quickly tanking companies, we now have to pay interest on them for what seems like the rest of our lives. It’s enough to make an upwardly-mobile-yet-currently-destitute college grad take a job in finance!

But before we wreck the dreams of Harvard legacies everywhere, let’s take a look at the argument. The title of the recent Gawker piece “College: Waste of Time” and the accompanying photo of a doofy-looking teenage wearing a shirt emblazoned with the word “fraternity” pretty much says it all. The article itself, however, sums up a New York Post editorial that breaks down the various debts and expenditures of college grads and high school grads like this: Bill and Ernie start out on the same setting. But whereas Bill will take out a massive college loan that he will end up having to pay off for the next four years, Ernie will choose instead a lucrative job as a plummer, requiring no loan of any kind and allowing him to earn and save almost immediately. Ernie, although he will have to spend the next fifty years with his hand down your toilet, will end up wealthier, more secure, and generally happier than Bill (especially if Bill decided to make a dent on his debt by going to work for Lehman Brothers right before it imploded). Therefore, the argument goes, a college degree is merely an elitist badge of honor that is a completely unreliable gauge of one’s success in today’s world. Bill may tease Ernie for going through life with his butt hanging halfway out of his pants, but Ernie will have the last laugh when he manages to save over a million dollars by the time he’s ready for retirement.

There are more than a few flaws in this argument, such as assuming that the majority of high school grads will actually be able to get high-paying jobs in skilled labor instead of at the local McDonalds or Starbucks. There’s nothing in here to make us believe that Ernie will have the wherewithal to save perfectly, or that he won’t always wish he had gone to an art school in New England and become a dance major. This argument is based solely on money, and on the idea of human beings as disciplined saving machines. The reality of the situation, as we have come to know so well, is that Ernie may not have college loans to take care of, but he will probably get into at least one accident in his lifetime, or have some kind of serious disease, and even if he does have health insurance, his insurer will probably refuse to pay for half of his treatment, leaving him bankrupt. Meanwhile, if Bill actually took that job at Lehman Brothers, well, we know what happened to him. What’s more, there are some really good public universities out there, and there are ways to earn a degree that have some bearing on what one wants to do after college. Shift your focus to Europe and the rest of the developed world, and the possibilities become astounding. Due to socialist systems that would make most Republicans weak in the knees, citizens of liberal France, Germany, and Denmark can get astoundingly good educations for next to nothing. And here we get at the real root of the problem. While European countries see educating their citizens and keeping them healthy as a longterm investment, more and more people in the US are being told to view it as a scam.

It doesn’t help this article’s credibility that it came from the comparatively conservative (not to mention sensationalist) New York Post. In fact, for a ruler, keeping one’s citizens downtrodden and uneducated has been one of the surest ways to make them easy to govern. When you don’t know anything, you don’t tend to ask questions, and sadly, you tend to believe everything the media tell you (about the bank bailouts being good for all of us, for example). We here at FICRY.com would like to see those affected by the crisis rise up and demand better and more affordable options for higher education. There is no reason we should be penalized for wanting to become experts in a moderately interesting although entirely useless subject. And there is no reason we shouldn’t all be able to spend the better part of our twenties accumulating degrees just because it beats having a real job. Universities have been hit hard by the FICRY, but one of the best decisions they could make right now is to use this opportunity, as so many others have, to reexamine their own values. They may have to come up with a new business model to remain relevant in the post-FICRY world, but rather than cheering for their demise, let us hope they succeed. A world full of aspiring plumbers but devoid of all poetry and philosophy would be a mighty boring world indeed.

To read more about the FICRY and Higher Ed, follow this link. Are you a highly educated and in debt or unemployed? We want to know what you think. Add your comments below and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.