Hey kids, it's time to wake up: The so-called "American Dream" is often a nightmare. This fact has been crystallized by the recent unveiling of a huge scam that has allowed the offspring of the rich and famous to attend many highly regarded colleges and universities despite the fact that they are a bunch of manicured, pedigreed dummies. So what does that make the rest of you?
Although I dutifully did as my parents wished and went to college, I have long believed that the push for "higher education" is pretty much a load of crap. Let's face it: Teaching is an industry wherein many, many people earn a living, so of course it's touted to be one of life's necessities. Yet Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and many other wildly successful thinkers, movers and shakers who are now millionaires or billionaires decided it was a total waste of their time, often after just one semester. Still all the little people are constantly told that only by going to college can they do well in life. Four, five or six years later they finally emerge, saddled with a burdensome debt that will only make the rest of life worse.
Call me cynical, but facts don't lie: Among the Class of 2018,
69% of college students graduated with an average debt of almost $36,000. Of those student loans, 11.5% are 90 days or more delinquent, or are in default. Some debtors choose to take out new loans to pay off their student loans. It's gotta be tough to remember what you learned about Shakespeare or Plato's Cave or calculus or the Holy Roman Empire while you're busy flipping burgers trying to scrounge up $350 a month to send to the bank.
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