How Student Loans Have Helped Make America Stupid

Out of youthful indifference, I attended an undergraduate school that no-one has ever heard of. Looking back on this choice, I sometimes wonder where I would be if I had put some effort into thinking out how I wanted to live my life and how I was going to survive after college. But this is not to say that I regret the choice, for to do so would be to deny that the school ultimately came to mean something to me, which it did. Nevertheless, indifference in my youth caused two things: (1) an absurd amount of student loan debt, due to the fact that I attended a private school; and (2) a degree with which I could do virtually nothing. Again, do not think that I discourage loving a subject so much as to want to study it without regard for the monetary outcome. Indeed, I myself would rather be a starving artist than than a thriving businessman. So it is not that I reject love of the arts, as this would be contradiction considering my own love for them. Rather, I reject that there is such a dichotomy as starving artists versus thriving businessmen. And yet it seems as though, today, I must become a businessman of some sort in order to survive.

I am now in my last semester of a Master of Arts program in philosophy at LSU. "Why are you there?" you might ask me. To this I would respond that I am here because my appetite was whetted in my undergraduate career and this was a chance to learn more about a subject in which I had already promised myself a future Ph.D. I am here because in order to get a decent job doing philosophy, one must come out of a top school. But what if I do not get into a top school, because admission rates are cutthroat? Sounds like I'm in trouble, aren't I? And this is all prior to the process of attempting to find a job in academia. It seems as if I simply must have high standards for myself from now on, so that I can scrape by. "At least," I will tell myself, "I am doing what I want to be doing."

But is being a professor what I want to be doing? Suppose that in the course of my career at LSU, I discovered that I needed no more direction in philosophy except for access to an excellent library and an occasional conversation with an expert. Suppose, that is, that I have matured enough academically to be competent to begin work on a dissertation. Suppose also that I have no particular love for teaching in the traditional classroom setting. And while we're imagining possible worlds, let us consider that even if I do land a professorship, I will be bogged down by bureaucratic policies which are designed to save the school money rather than advance human knowledge. It seems as if professors are required to teach classes that they often do not want to teach (for not everyone wants to be training novices -- it takes a certain kind of love), in addition to their requirement to jump through administrative and bureaucratic hoops. So let us imagine that the road to getting a Ph.D. is long, difficult and redundant (considering how many classes I will still have to take); and let us imagine that obtaining a professorship is extremely difficult; and finally let us imagine that when I am a professor, I will still have very little time for research, writing, and teaching those who want to hear what I have to say. Now let us cease imagining, for this picture is reality.

But if this possible world is the real world, then it seems as if I will not be doing what I want to do if I end up being a professor. So why on Earth would I put myself through all the hard work, all the lip-synching, all the form-filling that is involved in acquiring a professorship? What is the real reason that I am still pursuing a Ph.D.? It is because I was fooled, hoodwinked, I've been had. When I was a kid I was convinced that it was a good idea to take on tens of thousands of dollars in debt in the hopes of being able to pay that back. But this is not a lucrative investment. I have been sold a raw deal before I even knew what a deal was. The fact of the matter is that my investment is virtually guaranteed not to be able to pay for itself. The reason for this is that while I am in school, my interest compounds (because my parents were not quite poor enough to secure subsidized loans for me) and increases the capital; but, statistically speaking, I will almost certainly never get a job in philosophy that will allow me to pay back these loans in any reasonable or comfortable fashion. The most likely way for me to pay back my student loans (if I ever do) is through hard work at a job that I will probably hate.

So why am I still in school, then? The reason is simple. While I am in school, I do not have to pay back the student loans. So as long as I stay in school, the absurd dream of landing a perfect professorial job is still alive, and I need not pay for anything.

You might suggest to me that I enter a different field. And if I were to meet my former self, I certainly would have tried to give him some sense before willingly accepting all those loans. But the problem is that I have been groomed for a professorship -- it seems to be my doom. I am trained in virtually nothing else (nothing practical, anyway).

My best solution is this: (1) I will stay in school as long as I can; (2) while I am here I will seek reform; and (3) if reform is not possible, I will assist in revolution.

What the America is doing to its young intelligensia is criminal. We are crippled by debt incurred before we even know the consequences. We are soon to become the educated but homeless. Our parents owed it to us to secure us a good education which can be attained without personal debt, but this has not been done. We are the future and we are being downtrodden; it is as if America wants its leaders to be unintelligent and uncultured profiteers. It's no wonder that popular culture reduces to little more than advertisement and immediate unhealthy physical pleasure. The first generates profit and the second appeals to the palate of the ignorant. For example, most people do not know what good art is because they have been provided no experience of it. And you know, reader, what I mean. When you speak to the average American about music or movies, you are always disappointed at the overt ignorance and poor taste that the average American has. From Brittany Spears to The Fast and the Furious, from CSI to John Grisham novels. You are disappointed and I am too.

America has become stupid and ignorant. And now they do not even have a profit to show for their ignorance. We now have the opportunity to learn the lesson that our ignorance and stupidity cannot be allowed to persist any longer. We cannot let ourselves be fooled by banks who sell you money for more money. We cannot let ourselves be fooled by political parties who are more interested in combating each other than devising a sustainable political atmosphere. We must come out of our ignorance!

But are we already too stupid and ignorant to learn this lesson?

-Priam's Pride