College

I've always wanted to go to college. But when I graduated from high school, there wasn't enough money. Dad was sick and couldn't work. Mom needed to stay home with baby Sue.

So I went to work at a fast-food place.

But now that I have a steady job in an office, I'm saving my money. Maybe this summer I can take a college class at last.

College enrollment statistics indicate that the majority of those seeking higher education are female, and the gap continues to widen. This trend could have a profound effect on the future. If women surpass the male population educationally, it makes sense that they will also have more earning power than their male counterparts, and will be more qualified to fill positions of authority, leadership, and decision making. Are we heading for a female dominated society?

When I go to college, should I take an English course or a History course first? There are so many that sound interesting!

But maybe I should take a class in something useful, like computers. Then maybe I could get a better job and not have to work so much overtime to pay for school.

But suppose this is my only chance to take a class!

When I first went to college I had the misperception that partying was really important, that drinking a lot and getting drunk a lot and going to parties was the thing to do, what college students did. In the process, I lost a girlfriend, got 2 DUI's, wasted lots of money, and just didn't learn as much as I could have because I was always hung over. I think about all the books I should have read but only got parts read, I think of what I missed out on learning.

A great majority of our nine million college students are not in school because they want to be or because they want to learn. They are there because it has become the thing to do or because college is a pleasant place to be; because it´s the only way they can get parents or taxpayers to support them without working at a job they don´t like; because Mother wanted them to go, or some other reason entirely irrelevant to the course of studies for which college is supposedly organized. As I crisscross the United States, I am dismayed to find that professors and administrators, when pressed for a candid opinion, estimate that no more than 25 percent of their students are turned on by classwork. For the rest, college is at best a social center or aging vat, and at worst a young folk´s home or even a prison that keeps them out of the mainstream of economic life for a few more years.
What do YOU think?

College is the magical place where in four years, you turn into your parents.

College is a place where we put our young people because we can't find meaningful work for them to do. It is a wherehouse of our failure.