Education: The Gift That Keeps on Giving

You’ve likely seen news of the government’s decision to forgive up to $20,000 of student loan debt for qualifying borrowers, put forth by the Biden Administration to (kind of) fulfill a campaign promise. This hot-button issue has forced politicians and citizens alike to dive headfirst into the Willamette River after a spring rain, bathing their hot takes in a literal river of bullshit. Alas, this post is not meant to be political in nature but to shine a little light on the importance of education to our nation.

Let’s get the irony out of the way from the jump-I do not have a college degree despite spending enough years in college to get a graduate degree. I love learning but Young Will lacked both the focus and determination to complete one of the four majors he dabbled in. Whether in first grade or my fourth year as the Wooderson of Clark College, I was always more interested in helping others to succeed than in myself. Despite not completing a degree myself, I remain staunch in my support of education. Let me be clear though, this is not limited to a university or college. There are tremendous opportunities for people in the trades and I can speak to the value of a young person diving into such a career. My oldest son participated in a local “tech academy” in high and used that knowledge, along with hard work, to accept an apprenticeship as a diesel mechanic for the local transit authority. He’ll be able to retire at 53 with a pension and health care for the rest of his life, a pretty good deal to go along with great pay and benefits for a 23-year-old.

I strongly believe education is the cornerstone of success for both people and the society they live in. This is why I believe it would be far more prudent to invest in the future of education by funding community colleges and trade schools for a minimum of two years for each student that earns a diploma or GED. There should also be a civic service requirement for each student that takes advantage of the program so the return on investment begins immediately while building civic pride in the student.

Will the cost of such a program be high? Absolutely. But let us not kid ourselves; our government wastes obnoxiously large amounts of money on a myriad of ridiculous expenditures not to mention bailouts of corporations. As Professor Scott Galloway says of corporations, we have capitalism on the way up and socialism on the way down. Big business knows they won’t, nee, can’t fail *cough* banks, airlines, mortgage lenders during the Great Recession and Covid *cough* because the government will swoop in and save them. Off the top of my head, I think of Boeing as the crown jewel of using We The People as their own personal piggybank. While investing billions in stock buybacks to juice their share price and further enrich themselves, planes literally fall out of the air, costing human lives in the process. Imagine how differently you would treat your money if you could walk into a casino, gamble to your heart’s desire, and know that whatever money you lose will be replaced with someone else’s money. Would that change your willingness to gamble recklessly?

The United States is lagging in education in relation to the rest of the world and I believe this has been a concerted effort on the part of politicians looking to dumb-down society by stripping funding from education. Yeah, that may be a hot take but if we are very honest with ourselves, the proof is in the pudding. Somehow we’ve been tricked into believing this is acceptable when in reality, that couldn’t be further from the truth. We’re told how to think and feel, whom we should blame and whom we should hate, by those that have proven time and again that they do not have our best interests at heart.

If you’ve engaged in my content then you know how important I believe education is for *our* future. I’m not proposing anything new, these ideas have been floated for some time, but I’m trying to strip away the fog of political warfare to look at this situation critically. So long as we’re willing to fund cronyism and other malevolent ventures with our tax dollars, then I think it’s worth taking a long, hard look at investing in our young people. Like it or not, these kids are the future and like all good investments, due diligence and patience are required to see a solid return on our money.

We gone!

Twitter: @onehandman

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Email: William at manvsmood dot com