Looking upon the years ahead to times when my grandchildren approach college age, tell me, how much will their education cost?
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I completed over half of my college credits before actually thinking of a diploma in terms of return on investment. That’s embarrassing, evidence of an uneducated man. And, by worldly standards in today’s marketplace, I chose poorly.
Still, I am fortunate. Besides some academic scholarships and work/study programs that put spending money in my pocket, I had very supportive parents. They not only provided encouragement to acquire any undergraduate degree of my choosing but a financial safety net and a summer job in the family’s trucking business.
Thus, I enjoyed the illusion of being self-supportive long before actually achieving it. I experienced the self esteem of earning a diploma and, arguably, in such a way as to honor both my parents and academic institution.
I chose community journalism. I’ve enjoyed many, many aspects afforded by this station in life. I walked into my first job after graduation debt free. Truthfully, I don’t know how to figure the exact return on my investment to this day.
Not everything can be measured in dollars. Liz and I have been blessed over the years, making ends meet, even as our four children earned college diplomas.
But next come the grandkids.
Today I read where roughly 16 million college students in this country will carry an average financial debt of $37,172. What will that become 20 years from now, assuming today’s toddlers will want to pursue a college diploma? What, if anything, will be expected from me?
Back in the day having a “Sugar Daddy” meant more than just unearned income to depart from college without personal debt. Sometimes it meant you escaped the military draft which sent so many American youth to Vietnam. So, either way, the term “Sugar Daddy” was always negative — accepting things or privileges that were unearned. Taking the easy way, the broad path that allures so many.
Fast forward to today. It’s much worse.
There’s a website currently for public view that touts its ability to link “generous Sugar Daddies” with “attractive Sugar Babies” to cover college costs. The online matching service is as vulgar as it sounds. For a fee (charged to daddies, but not for babes), the website claims to feature more beautiful sugar babies per sugar daddy than any other (12 females to each male!) — and attracts Sugar Babies by dangling the prospect of involving more Fortune 400 billionaires in these “arrangements” than any other venue.
Since I’m very confident I’m neither a sugar daddy nor baby, I clicked on the link provided in that unsolicited email (from a Las Vegas communications company, no less). To my dismay, corporate logos from many familiar traditional print and online news sources immediately were prominent as if in endorsement (I can only hope none approved such use of their brands to legitimize this type of matching service).
I’m not a prude. I’m not totally naive or out of touch with such things as this. The profession, they say, is the oldest in the world. But I lament how such can be presented as if socially acceptable, even in our world without shame. And worse, this ilk and much more like it is only a click away.
Here’s the most somber claim the website makes: In response to debt, some 1.2 million students are using this website. It goes on to list “monthly allowances” the average Sugar Baby receives, cites a specific number of students signed up for specific universities, and ranks participation nationwide.
Can you think of a more scary argument to bolster a co-ed’s “Everybody else is doing it” logic against parents? What will the hype and numbers be 20 years from now?
Young adults today are under an unrelenting financial and moral assault which previous generations never faced. The “me” mentality is taken to extreme schemes which camouflage or obliterate boundaries and norms that have traditionally put family and the public good first.
This is nothing new. But it’s like putting dollars ahead of truth on steroids.
Most of my productive career years are now in hindsight. I see things much clearer now. Nobody forecast the impact of the internet on society when I graduated during the 1970s, nor the farm crisis of the ‘80s, nor the greed of the ‘90s as big business scaled up to financially gut small town America.
Yes, a diploma can be judged on the dollar return on investment. But an education involves so much more.
My alma mater quotes scripture over the administration building’s entrance, in reference to John 8:32. Truth is something we spend a lifetime trying to understand. It is most comforting to know truth never changes, even as our ability to recognize it continuously evolves.
The currency of a proper education is truth.
It seems so much of what defines today comes from what was previously considered uneducated — an illicit website promoting Sugar Daddies over self-esteem, “tuition free” schemes for votes rather than education, fake news for entertainment rather than information, tweets of impulse rather than measured truth.
You can get diplomas for wealth and high position by specializing in what was once considered the paths of the uneducated. But an education, measured in truth is getting very, very expensive. What will it cost 20 years from now?
For our grandkids to earn a college diploma where truth is the currency, tell me, how much will it cost?