Schools of Thought

By the Liberal Arts Dude

Read this article from the Washington Post and compare it to the response it got at the Cato Institute blog.

This is the student debt issue that I wrote about in this article revisited, where a student writes an essay that shows the financial hardship involved in pursuing higher education in this country—and promptly gets slammed in the Internet for speaking out.

What gives? I sense something very wrong here in the way people are responding to such essays and articles. Here's the basic formula of what happens:

Writer decries the financial hardship involved in pursuing and financing higher education. Cites personal hardships, circumstances, and offers a solution that involves government intervention in the form of more affordable loans, grants, or perhaps, even the radical notion that an education should be free or at least affordable to those who want it.

Nasty Responder very harshly slams the writer and takes the writer to task for:
• Whining
• Complaining
• Making bad decisions in life
• Making the wrong decisions in life
• Blaming everything but his/her own self for his/her circumstances in life
• Accuses writer of being a freeloader and a leech on society for wanting financial help
• Accuses writer of wanting to take society’s tax dollars for his or her own selfish use
• Accuses the writer of Communism, Marxism or some other Left-sounding ism for suggesting a government-sponsored intervention
• Basically tells the writer to shut up, quit whining, if you can't afford to go to school without help, maybe you shouldn't be going to school in the first place—or at least to this particular school or graduate program. Perhaps you should set your sights lower like, say, a community college.
• The basic assumption of the Nasty Responder is that society is working just fine, the system of paying for higher education is just fine, the high cost of education is just fine, the fact that it is out of reach for people who cannot afford it is just fine, that you pretty much have to bury yourself in debt to attain a decent education is just fine
• And if you disagree and complain about it you better be prepared to get yourself rhetorically torn to pieces.

I don't know about you but there is something seriously wrong with this picture.

1) People like the writer of these types of articles are trying to better themselves. They are trying to move up in life using the conventional means society makes available to them—via education. America has a long tradition of saying if you work hard, pursue higher education, play by and follow the rules of society, society will provide the means for you you to prosper and move up.

2) People like the writer aren't out there stealing, committing white collar crime, murdering people, dealing drugs, committing identity theft, or bilking retirees out of their pension money. What are they doing? They are trying to better themselves, their lives, and their personal circumstances by playing by the rules and working hard with the cards Life has dealt them by pursuing higher education. In my opinion, people like these should be encouraged and rewarded by society in their efforts of self-help and self-improvement.

3) People like the Nasty Responder are out there trying to refute every statement and shred any sense of credibility people like the Writer have. For what crime? For what infraction? For daring to aspire to higher education? What's wrong with that? For daring to complain or publish something in the mass media about it? Again, in the spectrum of behavioral and moral infractions that exists in society, that's pretty minor. Certainly not something that deserves the sheer vitriol and venom of the attacks on people like the Writer.

4) And what would the Nasty Responder have people like the Writer do? Here they are already doing something good—aspiring to higher education. That's about as noble and clean-living a pursuit as I can think of, short of joining the ministry or becoming a teacher or a social worker. Isn't the American Dream built upon the idea that one can better oneself in this society provided one is willing to work hard? Should people like the Writer just forget about this higher education crap and just drop out? Should they forget about trying to move up the conventional way by following society's rules? Should people like the writer just forget about having any ambitions, aspirations, dreams, and goals? In effect, that is exactly the message these Nasty Responders are giving out.

Hey Nasty Responders, is that the type of message that you mean to give—or are you actually trying to say something quite different?

Copyright 2006