Runaway Train! Runaway Train!
The higher education establishment is out of control, and it's burdening our young adult population with a lot of debt. “A fifth of recent college graduates report having postponed having children because of their college loans. The average 2002 graduate has almost $20,000 in loans to pay back, up 66% from five years ago. Almost half of the students from the most affluent quarter of the population now borrow money for college, compared to one-fifth a year ago.” Touchstone, March 2005
The cost of a college education keeps rising; big employers pressure employees to obtain MBAs; public school teachers are required to get Master's degrees; politicians dream of providing college educations for every high school graduate. Hence the title to this piece.
One of the best lines from Hollywood in the past ten years is from Good Will Hunting: The "sad thing about a guy like you is in fifty years you're gunna start doing some thinkin' on your own, and you're gunna' come up with the fact that . . . you dropped a hundred and fifty grand on a f****** education you coulda' got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library."
