Schooling

One of my granddaughters will start college this fall.  She lives in the Midwest where she has chosen to go to one of the smaller units of the state supported system of higher education about a three hour drive from her home.  Of course, she will live on campus, but she is anxious to be able to get home at least once a month.  Recently her family sent me the announcement--maybe also invitation--of her high school graduation that astounded me because it was so fancy.  Printed on quality paper, some attractive gray blue color, with lace edging, all the information printed with unusual, flowery script, containing a photograph of the young lady, set in envelope within envelope, as though it were a high class wedding invitation.  I can imagine in the days when a high school diploma was the end achievement for most youngsters in America that such a document made some sense, but nowadays when it is the merest bump on the race to educational triumph kindergarden to doctor of philosophy (I exaggerate), such pretension surprises.  It is not unlike so many Americans today who will sacrifice everything to go to a college well beyond their means.  I can think of a family who actually eventually declared bankruptcy after sending their daughter all the way across the country to a private relatively costly college when she could have taken an apartment with some of her high school chums and gone for considerably less financial outlay to the local public metropolitan college, a branch of the state university system with considerable academic reputation.  But both daughter and parents wanted the higher priced spread, like having a Miele dishwasher.  Because of the cost the public and the educational review magazines are demanding more and more immediate result from the college experience.  This is perhaps the dreariest fact of contemporary higher education: administrations are stripping away all the philosophical and cultural surround that once made it such an exciting, different, mind blowing experience and concentrating on offering courses that suggest immediate application to a professional life.  It has become a trade school writ large.  I have nothing against learning the bare facts that are immediately useful, but to take the focus away from all the richness of art, music, literature, contemplative discussion, hours of idleness, crazy thinking going nowhere, conversations between student and faculty, chilling out instead of getting ahead, that's sad.  But like everything else in America most institutions of higher learning have become part of the world of business.  When I started out I was paid so low a salary that no one but the truly dedicated would consider working for that amount.  Like going in on the field in the Marines it tested your resolve and I am glad of it.  Now senior faculty make a really lot of money, and despite their pretentious claims they don't work all that hard.  Beneath them on the salary scale are the new feature of education, the faceless, nameless hoards of temporary teachers--the so-called adjunct faculty--who will never be eligible for tenure (because that costs the university big bucks).  They are the Walmart workers of high education, they are the ones who teach these kids whose parents just paid the fantastic sums for the education. Sounds like every other scam in America today.  It's sad that it is our future generation here which is being shafted.