We can't afford no education

I just read an article in which a Columbia University professor defends today's high tuition sticker prices as false since college is much cheaper than people realize. I know part of my sticker shock is remembering what I and my parents paid for my CUNY tuition 25 years ago. I was very surprised when I entered my tuition from 1985 into an inflation calculator and saw that in 2011 dollars it was roughly the same. I don't know how public university tuition in other states compare, but there is no reason for students to be graduating from private universities with what is essentially a small mortgage that they will take years, if not decades to pay off (worse if they want to go to graduate, law or medical schools and incur more debt).

Tuition at many universities has been rising beyond the rate of inflation for a long time. However, the days of parents taking tuition out of their home equity have ended. Universities have forgotten they are in business to educate, not to create resort like dorms and pay for professors to do more research outside the classroom then time spent teaching students (research has its place, but it needs to be reasonable). While technology costs are higher now, it is time universities get back to the basics. Students aren't in college for a four year luxury vacation, they are there to work and prepare for their futures (parties on the weekends excluded of course).

There is something very wrong in that we are creating a generation that will be chained to jobs (if they can find them) and not take chances because they need to pay off their debts and can't afford to take a chance at a start-up that may not pay as much (or have health care but that is another story). One could even argue (put on your tin foiled hats if you have them), when taken to its logical conclusion, that we have enslaved our children's futures to private (even if publicly traded) financial entities, giving those entities ownership of the people and thereby ownership of a government that is by the people. Frightening thought, though if one looks at how much money is mixed into politics these days, it is not that far fetched.

We as a people are underfunding education at all levels (it seems as if many of the 101 courses are classes that were taught in high school as part of a public education a generation or two ago) and our children are paying the price. What this means for our country's financial future is anybody's guess but if talent can't rise to it's highest possible level because it can't afford to, then this country and its businesses are in a lot of trouble. Paraphrasing from President Franklin Roosevelt, the liberty of the people to pursue wealth and happiness will not be safe for the people if the cost to participate in the economy becomes stronger than the economy itself. Ownership of the people by those private powers holding the mortgage on the peoples' college degrees could, in its essence, lead to fascism.