So the Salem Statesman-Journal (a Gannett paper) runs this editorial in its on-line forum:

Going to college more crucial now than ever

Families must find a way to support youths’ educations

November 6, 2007

If you’re the parent of a young student and you can’t imagine how you’ll afford college for him or her, please stop that thought at your lips. Instead, say this aloud: “Somehow, we must get you to college.”

Just read the words of Gov. Ted Kulongoski, who spoke last week about how education is the “pathway out of poverty.” In a speech at Chemeketa Community College, he put it clearly: “You cannot escape poverty without a job … and in today’s economy, you can’t get that family-wage job with just a high school diploma or GED.”

. . .

During the next 10 years, experts say, four out of five job openings in Oregon will require skill training and education beyond high school. The remaining jobs will be more vulnerable to outsourcing and layoffs, less likely to include benefits or to pay a family wage.

. . .

As a parent, grandparent or neighbor, you can do only so much to influence this. But you can do everything to see that young people think of themselves as college material. That is the most important piece of this puzzle.

Here in the Mid-Valley, we are surrounded by Chemeketa Community College, Western Oregon University, Willamette University and Corban College, as well as satellite programs for several other colleges. Take advantage of these wonderful institutions. Visit their festivals, attend their concerts, eat lunch in their cafeterias or simply stroll through their campuses.

To which one respondent writes:

Opinion: Going to college more crucial now than ever
Ah yes the arrogance of the degreed…

Never a mention of the trades and how successful livelihoods are made with out the need of higher Ed.

But I guess schilling for colleges keeps the E board in the “good” with the liberal elitists.

Other than the unjustified slam at “liberal elitists” (much of the hate and discontent directed at affirmative action programs emanates from tory elitists angry that the talented children of the poor might gain access to college education ahead of their own mediocre children like George W. ) and the weird spelling of shilling (I hear “schilling” in a German accent) there is something to be said for this view.

The post WWII experiment with massive college enrollments is going to end quite soon. As we enter the “Long Emergency” — radically reduced circumstances prompted by inexorably declining energy supplies meeting continually growing demand — (as James Howard Kunstler terms it) we are going to find that what is needed more than anything is the mindset of a classical liberal education coupled with the practical skills of a tradesman.

In other words, children today are going to have to be the exact opposite of the typical university product in today’s system: heavily indebted, completely dependent on others for their every basic need, completely alienated from nature, and emotionally and viscerally in need of a corporate “good job” with full benefits, congenial workmates, and the ability to drive from suburb to suburb in search of fulfillment.

Our system of higher education is headed for a crackup of massive proportions (and possibly some real anger issues from children programmed for college from birth who learn that the tradesmen they were taught to look down on thrive while the college kids bemoan their status as indentured servants capable of producing nothing of value in a post-consumer-economy world).

If I had one piece of advice for young people today it would be this: either learn to feed yourself reliably or learn how to make yourself indispensable to people who feed others reliably. This means that you need to know how to make yourself invaluable to farmers who will be experiencing a return to pre-petrochemical farming in a low-energy society at a rapid clip.

Subjects currently taught in colleges can be quite helpful in this regard, but it is a cruel hoax to tell children that the acquisition of a college degree is a ticket to security.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 6th, 2007 at 5:42 am and is filed under Education, Energy Future, Environment, Livability. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.