Matters Of Opinion

Obama Says College the Key: Is it?

This past Monday, President Obama said this to University of Texas graduates (taken from the AP line):

“America has to have the highest share of graduates compared to other nations. But Texas, I want you to know, we’ve been slipping,” Obama said on a visit to the University of Texas.

“In a single generation, we’ve fallen from first place to 12th place in college graduation rates for young adults. That’s unacceptable, but it’s not irreversible. We can retake the lead,” Obama stressed.

“What I’ve tried to explain to people, education is an economic issue, education is the economic issue of our time,” Obama insisted, arguing: “The countries that outeducate us today will outcompete us tomorrow.”

The US president said first-rate education must be a top priority for the US economy to flourish.

“The single most important step we must take is make sure that every one of our young people (…) has the best education that the world has to offer. That’s the number one thing we can do,” Obama said.

Now, first thing first. Of course the President is going to say this at a college graduation. The politics of this and any other speech is prevalent in every administration of every President, R or D. He isn’t going to step onto a college campus and tell them:”You guys aren’t going to find a job. Sucks to be you.” It’s just not going to happen.

With that said, what caught my attention is that the President is saying that college graduates are our future. And I believe and agree with him. However, are the college graduates the future, or is our industry our future? Democrats (more specifically union supported D’s) constantly talk about our lack of work force with the steel/manufacturing industry, and honestly, to a degree, I agree. As a younger male who works at the steel mills, I can honestly tell you that on my shift, I’m probably the youngest person out there. This isn’t very telling since I’m only 24, however, the gap between my age and the next youngest is. The average age of the steel worker is mid-late thirties and above. Young people aren’t filling the positions that are left by those that retire. We just aren’t.

And really, that’s a good thing. More kids are going to college, more kids are getting a good high school education (which, in turn, negates the argument that we need more funding for schools, but regardless…) and more kids don’t have to go work at the mills to make a living. I do, because I was a jackass when I went to college. I didn’t apply myself, and I’m paying for it by working hard, long hours, while paying for my school myself now. But most kids aren’t stupid like I was, and are getting the education they need to not have to work at a steel mill.

But regardless, the point is this: in one sentence you hear politicians tell us that we have to be more self reliant as a country, and in the next they tell us that we have to send more kids to college. In order to achieve the first, the second can’t happen. We already have a shortage of people to work in the mills, and subsidizing even more kids’ education won’t achieve that.

My thoughts? Why, I’m glad you asked!

Political rhetoric aside, we need to stop subsidizing as many kids’ college. I know this sounds heartless, but if we don’t, we’ll have a nation that is all manager, and no worker. There are kids coming out of school by the dozen, every day, with no work experience in a 10% unemployment economy who can’t find work and went to school on our tax dollars. That’s fine and dandy to pay for these kids’ school, assuming they have no means of payment and decent grades, but that’s not always how it works. Too often grades are set aside because of race or poverty and that isn’t right, nor is it efficient when one thinks about the purpose of subsidizing college students.

The hard truth about life is that sometimes a person has to work a manual labor job for a while, or even at McDonald’s, or some other form of employment that is not altogether “coveted”, in order to work his/her way up and away from those that deserve to be in those spots. It’s the way it is. Life’s a…well…you get my drift. Get a helmet.

The point of all this rambling? As far as political fodder, Obama got it right. As far as reality? While we are losing manual labor job after job overseas, we are encouraging and paying for people to go to college. At some point, however, we have to face reality. And that reality is that some people are janitors and manual workers, and some people design the buildings that janitors and manual workers work in. Just because we pay for them to go to school and barely pass with all D’s doesn’t mean that it’s right or that it is what’s best for our country.If we want to be more self sufficient, we have to start letting the worker bees work, and not try to push them through college just for statistical purposes. I think it is important to help out poor children who have excelled and simply can not afford college. All for that. And the government helping out with some student loans? Sure. But a line a has to be drawn, and we have to realize that we need some of these kids to work hard labor if we EVER expect to be a self-sufficient country again.