Does This Look Like A Path To Prison?

On Sunday, Senator Bernie Sanders tweeted this:

At the end of the day, providing a path to go to college is a helluva lot cheaper than putting people on a path to jail.

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) December 13, 2015

 It sounds right. It might even hit you right in the feels. No one should have to struggle to fund their own education. And as someone who received generous scholarships, but still had to hold down two part-time jobs AND borrow an insane amount of money to juice my own degree, you might think I would agree with him. I'm also the mother of four children with no idea of how to pay for their four-year university stints. Free college is an attractive and alluring concept... sort of.

At least in his tweet, with the assertion that college is cheaper than prison, Senator Sanders acknowledges that SOMEONE is going to have to fund all of that free education. But he's right... sort of. The average annual cost of college tuition falls in the $20,000 to $35,000 range (It's only $9,410 for state residents attending public colleges. But let's not forget that figure is out-of-pocket for students. Those schools are already taxpayer-funded). The cost of incarceration falls somewhere between $20,000 to $40,000 per prisoner annually.

Seems like the expense is pretty comparable.

However, when we take into consideration the average time spent on a college degree (six years) and compare it with the average length of a prison stay (surprisingly only 2.9 years), it is easy to conclude that sending young people on a path to prison might be more cost-efficient.

Of course I'm being snarky... sort of. Crunching numbers like that doesn't take into consideration which group contributes more to society. However, the number of college students graduating with crippling debt and few marketable skills is mind-numbing. The Economic Policy Institute reports that 16.8 percent of new college graduates are "underemployed".

Cost to the American taxpayer aside, there is one other problem with Senator Sanders' tweet: the implication that a path to prison is the most likely alternative to a path to college.

Mike Rowe, from Dirty Jobs fame, has already given a marvelous rebuttal to Senator Sanders' college-is-the-only-path-to-success sentiment. Not everyone needs to go to college. Not everyone should go to college. And the statistics show that a college education isn't a fool-proof ticket to the big times.

There are many other available paths, none of which lead directly to prison. Mike Rowe is a big proponent of trade schools and hard work. But there is another path that no one is talking about.

I find it incredibly ironic that the day after Bernie Sanders' controversial tweet this happened...

That is my oldest taking his oath of enlistment in the United States Army. He has rejected the social message that the only path to success and happiness involves college degrees and student loan debt. 

But this doesn't look like a path to prison to me. What do you think Mr. Sanders?

Trigger Warnings Are Dumbing Us Down

Trigger Warning: This blog post may contain one or more of the following potentially offensive or upsetting subjects, which could in turn cause weak-minded overly-sensitive readers to overreact, send me nasty emails, or otherwise rant about the unfairness of life. While I realize that trigger warnings are unnecessary like 100% of the time, consider this my attempt at being more politically correct. I'm doing this for you, you radical social justice warriors out there roaming the internet looking for random blog posts to be offended by. Thank you for forcing me to cater to people who can't take a joke, don't understand sarcasm, or just generally want to stifle opinions and worldviews that don't perfectly coincide with their own.

Misogyny, homophobia, racism, classism, terrorism, alcoholism, materialism, speciesism, Satanism, drunk driving, child abuse, swearing (Damn it!), fat shaming, skinny shaming, listing the calorie content of the McDonald's value menu, slavery, victim blaming, slut shaming, self defense, guns, knives, spears, flails, weapons in general, blood, death, skulls, corpses,  medical procedures, pregnancy, childbirth, snakes, spiders, bugs, slimy things, ostriches (those things seriously freak me out), needles, kidnapping, dental trauma, Nazi paraphernalia, Confederate flags, American flags, bald eagles, other random symbols of American patriotism, sarcasm, irony, rude people, bullies, cyber bullies, trolls, orcs, zombies, sex positive shaming, sex negative shaming, trans degendering, mansplaining, rape culture, microaggressions, algebra, long division, word problems, Roman numerals, cultural appropriation, oppression, male privilege, poverty, this list could go on forever, and there's probably no one left reading it, so I'll go ahead and stop now.

Thousands of college students are headed back to campus this week. While college campuses have long been bastions of political correctness, this semester some colleges are bringing their correctness to new levels. Some universities are adding trigger warnings to their course materials.

While college isn't exactly the real world, it also isn't exactly a feminist, social justice blog (the places where trigger warnings are rampant displays of enlightened liberal thinking and social sensitivity, with a dash of holier-than-thou attitude). It isn't meant to be a place that conforms to the student, that conspires to protect their comfort levels and meet them right where they are. That isn't education. It's more akin to babysitting. Colleges aren't meant to be intellectual or emotional "safe zones".

College is supposed to be the place where young adults jump in the deep end of the pool of academics, where they spend four (or more) years immersed in art and literature and philosophy and science. A place where they explore new ideas, have their beliefs challenged, and their knowledge expanded. It is supposed to be a place where students are stretched, sometimes frustrated and possibly even deeply moved, where their worlds are expanded and their boundaries pushed.

I'm not suggesting that individual students not be given easy access to mental health care. I also acknowledge that for some survivors of violence, reading or discussing certain graphic topics could potentially be disturbing. But these generalized trigger warnings aren't really about helping those suffering from PTSD. Even the most basic principles of psychology insist that it is misguided to help those with anxiety disorders avoid the things they fear. In fact exposure therapy is one type of cognitive therapy suggested for soldiers suffering from PTSD by the Department of Veterans Affairs . While the college classroom shouldn't be a therapy session, sanitizing life from anything potentially distressing or controversial isn't exactly reasonable or helpful.

If we insulate young people from discussions of uncomfortable topics, how will they grow? How will we make progress as a civilization? How will we find solutions to the big problems? We can't pretend that these things are so distressing that they can't be discussed. The topics that make us all uncomfortable are the very things that we should be talking about. There are far more important things to discuss than the weather (that one didn't make it onto the rigger warning list. How very insensitive to survivors of natural disaster.)

A campus culture that polices the speech of it's students and faculty, that slaps warning labels on classic works of literature, and treats words as potential forms of violence is not one conducive to learning. One of the basic tenets of education is "Don't teach them what to think. Teach them how to think." But trigger warnings not only censor content, they also place a preconceived level of disgust for the topic at hand. They already place a value judgement without letting the student come to their own conclusions. When students already start out being told what to think, how can they learn how to think for themselves?

While lovers of trigger warnings might simply be attempting to protect young women and other traditionally marginalized groups (LGBT, people of color, the mentally ill, etc.) from the damaging effects of the mind set and the abuse of power the white male heterosexual oligarchy has inflicted on others throughout history, those trigger warnings are actually doing far more harm than good. The warnings tend to be directed at those very same marginalized groups (women, LGBT, people of color, the mentally ill) and contribute to the general perception that those groups are weak, overly sensitive, and worthy of marginalization.

By trying to heal hurts of the past, they are in large ways just making bad situations worse. Women are strong. Minorities of all sorts are strong. Largely because of the injustices they've suffered. For that very reason, the topics of those injustices should not be swept behind insane trigger warnings where nobody can touch them without lacing up their kid gloves.

We shouldn't be avoiding the topics of racism, sexism, rape culture, violence, war, etc... Sure those topics are disturbing. That's all the more reason we should open the floor for discussion.

But here is a trigger warning some of you probably need: Not everyone is going to agree with you.

I know that might be traumatic. But that's life. And sometimes life isn't pretty.

My Son Isn't Going To College

My son isn't going to college.

I know I should be hanging my head in shame. Society-at-large thinks I'm a failure... and I've raised a failure of a kid.  He'll probably be sleeping on my couch until he's well into his thirties.  Or maybe he'll just leech off the state for a while.  Or flip burgers for eternity, just suffering through a miserable and unfulfilling life until the end of his days.  I mean, everyone knows the only road to success and happiness runs straight through a four-year university.

Or does it?

My son doesn't have any desire to go to college and it's not because he's unambitious, or lazy, or stupid, or his career plans involve asking customers if they want fries with that.  No, my son is just one of the lucky few who hasn't been programmed to believe the only way to success is with an expensive piece of paper.  He doesn't want to be crushed under the weight of expensive student loans to pursue an education his family can't afford to provide, just to come out and be as unemployable as he seemed to be when he started.

He missed out on the public school programming.  He wasn't exposed school year after school year to the lie that's being fed to our young people (Heck!  It's being fed to the not-so-young too) that the only way to get a decent paying job, and therefore succeed in life and find eternal happiness, is to go to college.  It starts in grade school when the missionaries (also known as counselors, administrators, teachers and sometimes even parents and grandparents and cousins twice removed) start preaching the college track as the only road to economic salvation, and their message only intensifies and increases in fervor the closer students get to high school graduation.  It's a thorough brainwashing that leaves the baptized dazed and confused when they eventually emerge from their institutions of higher education and await success to fall like mana from the sky only to discover that their degree in psychology or history or women's studies or underwater basket weaving just isn't the ticket to the big time that they thought it would be.  And to add insult to injury they are all too often left holding the bill for their expensive education with no way to pay for it... except maybe to work retail or wait tables or the checkout lane at the local Wal-mart... you know?  All of the jobs the lowly losers who only hold a high school diploma (instead of the fancy expensive piece of paper purchased from a university) are also qualified for?  Welcome to adulthood, suckers!

Here.  Have some statistics just to prove my point:  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of college graduates working minimum wage jobs is up 71% higher than just ten years ago.  The Economic Policy Institute reports roughly 8.5 % of 2014 college graduates are unemployed, while another 16.8% are underemployed (Which means they may be working only part-time or holding temporary positions but are looking for full-time work).  More than one third of recent college graduates are working in positions that don't require a college degree.  Meanwhile, student debt tops one trillion dollars.

That's TRILLION.  With a T.

I know that it may seem like I'm on some bitter anti-college rant, but I will remind you that I have a college education.  And my husband has a college education. And it is largely because of his that we have a roof over our heads and food to eat and a computer for me to type out my passionate yet cynical rants about modern society. Mine... well not so much (but I majored in Music Performance...  sooooo... ).

I also happen to think a college education is a great thing... depending on what your life plan might be.  If you plan to be a doctor, or a lawyer, or an engineer, or some other super-specialized career where knowledge in your chosen field needs to be extensive... please, please, PLEASE go to college.  Or if you want to pursue a career in academia where you can "educate" other poor schleps who have bought into the system... go ahead and go to college... and go to college again... and again... for years. But most kids who enter college aren't on a track to medical school, or law school, or distinguished positions in the scholarly world.  They are there because they've been told that that's where they should be if they don't want to be a perpetual loser.  And they are pursuing fairly useless degrees in fairly useless fields while wasting Mommy and Daddy's money on booze and junk food and engaging in questionable and dangerous behavior.

With colleges and universities churning out more and more college graduates every year like conveyor belt factories, employment opportunities for individuals who hold "just" a bachelor's degree are very limited (see the above statistics).  Which means those graduates will either join the unemployed masses, or settle for a barista position at the local coffee shop, or head back into the university factory for a higher degree and even more debt.

But what if those same beer guzzling slackers instead of wracking up student loan debt for a fairly worthless bachelor's degree, had instead invested time in a trade school?  What if they had invested time learning something useful like welding or basic machining or automobile mechanics?  Right now employers seem to value skilled labor over educated labor.

Trade schools require less time commitment (nine months to two years in comparison to the 4 plus years often needed to complete a bachelor's degree)and less financial investment (the cost of the average bachelor's degree in the United States is $127,000 while the average cost for a two-year trade school is only about $33,000).  Plus if we crunch some numbers, we find that the trade school education has a much higher return on investment (about $12 for every $1 invested in education versus the $9 for every $1 invested in that bachelor's degree).

And there will be jobs waiting for the trade school graduate the day after graduation (if not sooner).  Employers are seeking workers with high precision skills, so trade school graduates (depending on their field of study) have little trouble finding employment in their chosen field... unlike the girl with the BA in History that's serving up their morning coffee.  There is no shame in pursuing a career in a trade field.  None.

Still (since we're talking numbers and success and other bs), statistically speaking the average college graduate will make more money over his or her lifetime than the average trade school or high school graduate.  But first, the wide-eyed and dreaming young freshmen have to actually graduate from college (and eventually find a job, but I've already made that point I think), and that might not be as easy as their high school counselor made it out to be.  According to a 2012 Harvard study, only 56% of students who enter America's colleges and universities manage to graduate within six years. And tragically, without that magic piece of paper, there is no difference in lifetime income from the lowly high school graduate.  A partial college education is pretty much meaningless in the real world of adulthood.  But congratulations on the debt, and good luck finding a creative way to it pay back.

Do you want to know what's really ironic?  Too often, college is seen as the only road to a successful future. But most high school students aren't really thinking about the future at all (shocker, I know)... at least not far enough into the future.  The focus tends to be on getting into a good college.  Not how to finish or, more importantly, what they want to do when they complete their degree.  Too many go to college "because they want to make more money".  And that's just the wrong reason.

College isn't for everyone and it shouldn't be marketed as such.

I personally loved college.  I loved late nights of study and the dusty smell of books in the library stacks and the solitude of a School of Music practice room (which is where I spent most of my time).  But my son is not me.  He's ADHD and dyslexic (although homeschooling largely saved him from those often damaging labels).  He likes to work with his hands and be outside.  He enjoys physical activity over studying.  He's actually incredibly brilliant and artistic and mechanically inclined.  But he would be miserable in a traditional college setting.

And he's not alone.  There are thousands of kids every year who enter the system, not because it's what they really want to do, but because it's what's they've been told they should do (They don't want to be labeled losers).  Many of them don't even know what they want to do if they happen to struggle through and receive that shiny degree.  There are plenty of kids who hate school and who struggle to maintain C averages who will still end up enrolling in a four year program.  Why are they there?  They probably aren't going to make it out successfully.  It's a set-up for failure.

What better way to start the experience of your adult life except with a big fat glaring failure?

Sure the numbers prove that college graduates make more money, but correlation does not equal causation.  Just because college graduates make more money does't mean the degree is the sole cause of the increase in income.  People who graduate from college are likely to have characteristics like perseverance, dedication, and a willingness for hard work.  Guess what, folks.  Those characteristics are bigger factors in determining success than the actual degree.

And while a degree may make you more marketable as a potential employee... a job isn't the only way to make money (although the masses seem to want you to think so).  A wonderful and brilliant friend of mine once told me, "You don't need a job.  You need an income."  And there are plenty of ways (far too many to list here) to make money if you're willing to think outside of the very limited employment box.

Besides, how terribly sad that the world seems to define success based solely on how much money a person makes.  What about fulfilling personal relationships and physical health? What about community involvement and happiness and the third metric?

So no, I'm not devastated that my son is choosing not to go to college because I know that he understands perseverance and dedication and hard work.  I see him embody those virtues almost everyday.  And I also know he understands the importance of loving people and having fun and standing up for a worthy cause and that life isn't just about making money.  I know that he will define his own success and not blindly accept what society is attempting to spoon feed him. He's his own person and he's fabulous and he's definitely NOT a loser.

I know he's going to be just fine.

My Son Isn't Going To College

My son isn't going to college.

I had an exchange via email recently with another homeschooling mom.  Our sons are the same age.  16.  Finishing up 10th grade.  This mom is trying to put together a game plan for her son's junior and senior years of high school.  She wanted my advice and input.

I didn't know what to tell her.  Daniel isn't the academic type.  He really has no desire to pursue a college degree (at least not in the foreseeable future).  So my response to her went something like this:

We will most likely be focusing on some theme projects as well as working our way through a series of GED workbooks.  Daniel is mostly just ready to be done with the whole school thing.  Sorry I can't be more help in your planning.

The response back explained that her son was definitely going to college, has high goals, blah, blah, blah.

Being homeschooling moms...heck, being moms in general...we tend to judge our success on the perceived success of our children.  Generally that success is measured in the manner society measures success.  For kids it's grades.  For budding adults it's which college they are attending.  As established adults it's how much money they make.

Poppycock!

My son isn't going to college.  So freakin' what?

Do you know how awesome this kid is?  There is no way I can look at this funny, creative, artistic, compassionate soul and think he somehow falls short because he doesn't want to go to college.  His talents don't fall within the realm of academia.  But he is marvelously talented physically and mechanically.

A college education doesn't guaratee success anyway (especially not in this day and age).  I'm still thrashing around under my massive load of college debt, something I wouldn't wish on any of my children.  Was my degree worth the debt...probably not by society's standards.  I've "wasted" most of my adult life diapering children and folding laundry.  The best thing I got out of college was my husband, the father of the four most beautiful wonderful children in the whole universe (and I mean that with all sincerety.  Sorry your kids aren't as awesome as mine.)

So what will my dear son do once he turns 18?  Anything he wants.  In fact, he can get a headstart on life rather than waiting 4-8 years pursuing degress which don't guarantee happiness or success.  All I want is for him to be happy anyway.  And happiness doesn't come automatically with a college education anyway.  I know a lot of "successful" college graduates with broken homes and prescription drug addictions. 

Basically, what I'm saying is this:  I want more for my son than a college education can provide for him anyway.  I want him to pursue whatever makes him happiest.  Period.  And his level of happiness and fulfillment is what I will measure his success by.