Education

Irvine Dorm

College was once a playground for the elite where they could get together, find spouses, build contacts, and learn, of course (I’m not totally cynical). Like gardeners, vacations, and cell phones, what was once the provenance of the wealthy, a university education, became available to large segments of society: so common that many middle-class parents now see their child’s non-college attendance as a life-failure. This article in the Los Angeles Times describing the emphasis on luxury living for college students indicates a furthering of the trend towards upscaling middle-classness. Not just happy to be there, many students demand a style of living unavailable to even successful people out of college.

Equality fetishists (who often, contradictorily, denounce materialism) may see the democratization of excess as a good development in society, a way of promoting a sameness of circumstance. Those favorably disposed towards education in general and who can't imagine spending too much on it probably tolerate this state of affairs if not enthusiastically applaud it.

Follow up:

But, the phenomenon of taxpayers and parents spending millions of dollars for non-character constructing superficialities like treadmills or surround sound speakers is really the effect of a society confused about why we have colleges in the first place. While we live in a free country and nobody should have a problem with people spending their own money to ensure their children an extravagant existence, it should bother people that California legislators and students continuously ask taxpayers to increase spending for higher education yet seem little concerned with trying to control costs. Americans need to make a case for college- to define what it is and how it fits into our culture. Is it a place where people go to learn a trade, become educated, or have a college "experience?"

College as career preparation/union strengthener:

Colleges should teach students those things with which they can help their society (primarily economically, but also scientifically- if they can be disentwined, culturally, etc.). The general welfare is the only reason a taxpayer should want to pay for somebody else's education. If there's a high school student with a talent for engineering but parented by people with no aptitude for saving money, then we're really benefiting ourselves by helping him out.

College as education:

This proposition makes two huge assumptions: First, that students learn very much in college (I dare anybody reading this with a liberal arts degree to tell me that they didn't learn 99% of what they know outside of a college classroom). Second, that universities are the only way that people can become educated-as if somebody couldn't pick up a book, write papers, or even get together with friends and discuss the same things they’d ignore in college without a professor hanging a grade over his head.

Does “educating" people help society?

People with degrees make more money, but unless they’re in a science or a trade like architecture, their higher income is unlikely to be the result of what they learned in college. It probably has to do with the simple fact that they have a degree at all, that piece of paper representing to prospective employers the ability to show up on time, finish assignments, and accomplish goals. To some, a prestigious degree may just act as peripheral evidence of above-average natural intelligence.

School as right of passage substitute:

This is the view that having left the despotism of one’s parents, with little responsibility, and enjoying the support of either their former oppressors or taxpayers; students can or should have a few years to explore themselves and their surroundings in a safe environment-kind of like a huge, expensive kindergarten. Needless to say, the benefit to those paying for this “experience” is dubious, at best. At worst, it could actually make society worse by encouraging the exact wrong kind of ethic-that others exist to help you have fun.

So, before we start installing Jacuzzis and mud baths into college dorms, let’s think about how such things help society. Let’s also consider that besides sucking up public resources, luxury learning may actually harm society.