College

As time rolls on I see life in the bigger picture more and more.
Which is funny (ish) as I tend to stress the details of the little things more and more.

The aside put aside for a moment, whether it is knowledge, wisdom, experience or just plain insanity my perspective on life has changed and potentially grown.

There is this pervasive thinking in America that college is a must. It is a goal to be achieved and attained. There is pressure from parents, family, culture and even politics that unless you attain this goal you are a failure or somehow less of a person. If I (meaning a some nebulous "I") do not go to college then I am a failure or doomed to a life of mediocrity or "meaningless" labor. We put all this pressure on TEENAGERS to make this decision that has an impact on the rest of their life that they feel they have to go through with it no matter the cost. I hear all too often and from a seemingly VERY large percentage of college graduates that they spent years and thousands of dollars learning something that they end up not using. Whether it's getting out into the real world and realizing that they just really don't want to spend the rest of their lives doing that or they did not learn all they needed to learn or just plain cannot find a job in that field. The latter being far more frequent. We waste a lot of time and pile a ton of stress on teenagers to make these choices and it ends up being a waste.

No, I will not now go into the ramifications of the "free" college push and what that means for these problems, but it is something to consider for a future discussion.

Now, that is not to say that there aren't plenty of teenagers who know what they want and/or have a desire to go but I think, with a nod to Mike Rowe, there are MORE opportunities out there that do not require a degree, are just as fulfilling and don't cost much if any money to get into. Society would have us believe that these are beneath us or are becoming obsolete so we ALL need to go to college and get a degree because that is the FUTURE! This is a lie. I'm sorry if I burst any bubbles. But it is a fact. Unless or until there is a completely machine automated workforce there will always be "lesser" jobs that need done and to be quite frank are going to be paying more than most college educated jobs. The whole "jobs people won't do" market is by necessity going to pay more and more as we become a nation of people who are to "weak" to do real work.

There is a "reset" coming. Where the top becomes too heavy and the whole system of college graduates collapses. There are those who are meant to go to college. There are those who are not. And more importantly there are those who aren't ready until later in life. How about we encourage our kids to not be so stressed about it or be in such a rush and encourage them to make the RIGHT decision for this time in their life. Opportunities come around. Wait for the right one.