The Greatest Lie Ever Sold

By Marc Priester on January 14, 2013

It’s that time of year again; starry-eyed high school seniors have submitted their final applications to the universities of their dreams. They pray for acceptance letters, imagining the gaiety they will feel once those letters role in. Within the confines of those packages, beyond the propaganda laced school portfolio “promising” the best four years money can buy and ignored tuition and fees letters “promising” that $50K is totally manageable, lies a different promise. The promise of the upper middle class, the pipe dream future yuppies have been fed since we were barely able to spell “Harvard.”

The unfortunate truth for America is it’s time to wake up from this lucid dream before the draconian nightmare materializes, for our current obsession with prestige and rank borderlines fetishism.

There is abysmal waltz between college rankings and how we value education that inadvertently compels individuals to irrationally worship universities, which then leads to foolish economic decisions to attend overly expensive colleges because of the “promise.”

It’s no secret; the most prestigious and highly ranked universities are the ones that have hideously inflated tuition rates. That in itself is problematic. Total held college debt now exceeds aggregate credit card debt levels and has crossed the $1 trillion dollar mark. Tuition astronomically escalated over the last few decades, including a 28% increase in tuition over the past five years for public institutions according to College Board.

This economic bubble is petrifying and our fiendish religion around college induces its continual expansion. Three principal agents must share the blame: media, parents and students.

First, the media has epitomized collegiate culture, pumping up students to attend the most prestigious albeit expensive schools on the planet. There is a strange irony in all this, for example Huffington Post has an entire section dedicated to the college debt crises yet constantly barrages readers with “best college” lists, sending students into a frenzy over these schools while ignoring the prevailing cost. “Look how great this school is! Oh and in four years, send us your circumstantial horror story of being overwhelmed by $100k of debt.”

Next are parents. Here’s an anecdote: a friend of mine’s parents had already asked her to begin thinking of graduate school. She was a freshman and hadn’t even decided on a major yet!

College “promises” the middle class, it “promises” a two story suburban house with the white picket fence and a hot wife/husband. Nothing is promised, not in this economy. Students need a ferocious desire to learn in order to maximize the educational benefits of college. “Getting by” is unacceptable, especially coupled with compounding debt, especially if your career aspirations do not require a degree. Do not waste time lethargically floundering in school.

Learn a vocation and network to attain success. Simply attending a four-year institution does not warrant a middle class lifestyle; thank the Great Recession for eradicating many of the white-collar jobs for that. An employer is not employing you because of the prestigious university on the degree, but on forged merit and individual seizes.

Even with all of these outside pressures, students must be partially culpable for the status quo. I understand the pressure, I understand the literal conditioning that you have been subjected to for 18 years about going to the best school possible. However, intelligent economic decisions must be prioritized. The degree you hold from “prestigious university X” is never worth $80k-$100 of debt. Debt literally ruins your life by stunting your ability to buy a home, car, or start a business. In other words, it’s very challenging to become an adult while inundated with loans. No 18-year-old can conceptualize that titanic amount of liability. But prudence must upend the absurd college culture that was forced down your throat.

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