Scholarship Search

One of the great difficulties of modern American suburban bourgeoisie, in so far as we have difficulties, is the daunting prospect of college tuition. For a talented member of the middle or upper middle class (families making between 60,000 and 140,000 dollars a year) opportunities for success are not difficult to find. Loads of test taking guides, unprecedented educational opportunities and helpful parents make it (relatively easy) to excel in high school. Yet with each sure step towards college education, the idea of paying for college education weighs heavy upon the mind.

In my case this is particularity clear. Since I was a wee tyke, my parents have home schooled me and my siblings, showering each and everyone of us with opportunities that they themselves did not possess. Yet as each of us took advantage of these, and profited greatly from them, the pending costs of college began to skyrocket.


For instance, prior to her SAT scores, my sister's options (Local public universities) would cost between 10 and 15 thousand dollars a year - including room and board. Subsequent to evidence of her excellent academic achievement, my sister was admitted into the University of Chicago, which in exchange for the privilege of attending it, will end up (over four years) demanding around 200,000 dollars from her and her relatives.

Leaving aside for the moment her skill, and good fortune, in discovering enough scholarship money to make such a cost feasible, it is interesting to note that our best universities increasingly demand funds from their students approaching a moderately sized mortgage. The American Dream of education is quickly beginning to resemble to American Dream of homeownership, one of assets mortgaged in the hope of future success.

There are a number of points concerning this information that I think it is critical to make.

The existence of such an expensive sector of our economy is not an excuse for government intervention. There are very good reasons for why some one would want to spend 200 grand on a Harvard (or similar) education, not the least of which being that such an outlay will in many cases be returned by the exponential increase in earning power such a degree makes possible. Furthermore, the picture of government involvement in education is that, if anything, it has the effect of significantly increasing the costs of college. Universities operate in accordance to the laws of supply and demand in the same manner as Ice Cream trucks or any other operation, and a Stafford loan (or Pew grant) is really just a large increase in the number of dollars chasing after the same amount of educational slots. Cost inflation is thus to be expected.

However, there are significant cultural effects of such a situation which have undesirable consequences for America as a whole. First, the incredible expense of attending a higher tier university has a 'chilling effect' (Lamont v. Postmaster General, 381 U.S. 301, 85 S.Ct. 1493 1965) on the ability for students to concentrate on disciplines which are not economically lucrative. From certain sciences, to the humanities, to the arts and beyond, individuals which a wise civilization wishes to promote in their endeavors may be discouraged from pursuing academic and cultural fields with little to no payoff. While the resulting abundance of lawyers and investment bankers is not exactly evil per se, such a use of societies best and brightest is certainly not healthy.

Secondly, such costs require children (unwilling to stomach debt that, to be fair, is the cheapest they will ever have access to) to enter the 'Scholarship Search' with with a devotion resembling an actual job. It makes no sense to earn 7.50$ and hour, when they have to produce something on the order of $250,000 by the time they are 22! Not even accounting for the, significant, cost of grad school, the pressure placed upon young students with little or no experience in the work force is nigh on incomprehensible. It approaches to realm of satire to demand of our most talented highschoolers an amount of specie which their adult guardians did not - usually - begin to accumulate until years into the workforce. To echo William F Buckley, "The mind boggles."

This then is the problem; I will post what I feel is the solution soon.

But for now - I need a sandwich.

Paul Dueck