What right do we have?

     What right do we have to talk about freedom? I go to college, to get good grades, to earn a degree, to get a good job, to pay back debts, to live comfortably, to then die in my 70s. But, everyone does this. Not just the wealthy, but now you have poorer people going into hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt for the same degrees, for the same job positions. 

     Who is to blame? The schools? In a way, yes. high schools pushing college, so they can have a nice and neat percentage of students who go into major universities, but don't care about how high the drop-out rate of the very same students are. The parents? Pushing degrees on their kids in the hope that they will live more comfortably, without taking into account that every other parent is pushing the same thing? The jobs themselves? Asking for bigger and better degrees, with less experience to back them up? Or is it us? Are we, the 'victims' to blame? We get so caught up in the hype that we, ourselves, start to gloss over some of the nastier details. We say that despite the debt, we'll afford it with our new jobs, or that it's worth it for the social interaction, despite professors who clearly don't care what they're teaching. In the end, you can say that college is the problem, and prices are too high, but does that get you anywhere. I came to this realization after a semester and a half at WCC, when signing up through classes is called a 'shopping cart', like a degree is something you can throw money at, rather than earn through learning.

      I can honestly say that after I graduate, I don't want to move on with college. I want to learn, but not if this is how it's done. My goal, after community college, is to go and get a trade under my belt, and to work with my hands. The freedom to shape my own path in life is what I yearn for, and I'm sure many others can appreciate what I mean, but I will be damned if I'm going to live like cattle, herded through a college, then through grad school, milked for all my worth in an increasingly abysmal job market, then put out to pasture. 

     It's said in most religions that man is made in the image of god, but I've never seen god work a desk job.