The Onion: Man Has Alarming Level Of Pride In Institution That Left Him $50,000 In Debt, Inadequately Prepared For Job Market

By on January 11, 2013 in News 5

Many a true word is said in jest…

Man Has Alarming Level Of Pride In Institution That Left Him $50,000 In Debt, Inadequately Prepared For Job Market

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  • kowalityjesus

    A very funny video that is funnier yet due to its poignancy.

    This lack of appreciation for why a college degree is actually valuable is indeed widespread. Perhaps as more acute specialization becomes increasingly necessary, and students’ attention spans are more pampered by their childhood education, middle-class students like this who feel obligated to go to college simply “because it increases my chances of getting a good job” are tossed under the wheels through illusions of accomplishment in the form of grade inflation and pomp and circumstance. Of course there are more intangible benefits to a college education, but I think this archetype misses many of them through his lifestyle choices.

    I would like to point out that America as a whole may have the same rap before long except with reference to its currency. WHY is the currency so highly valued? Because of precedented economic circumstances which hardly exist any more. Once the inevitable market correction takes place we may find ourselves as a nation at our parents’ house too.

    • https://sites.google.com/site/themattprather Matt Prather

      “I would like to point out that America as a whole may have the same rap before long except with reference to its currency. WHY is the currency so highly valued? Because of precedented economic circumstances which hardly exist any more. Once the inevitable market correction takes place we may find ourselves as a nation at our parents’ house too.”

      That is a very funny and poignant statement right there.

      I applaud you.

      • kowalityjesus

        thanks very much, sir!

  • Dingbert

    Quotes to think about, from two very intelligent men:

    “It is not so very important for a person to learn facts. For that he does not really need a college. He can learn them from books. The value of an education in a liberal arts college is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think something that cannot be learned from textbooks.”
    -Albert Einstein, responding to Thomas Edison’s assertion that college is useless

    “If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library.”

    -Frank Zappa

    “The cool-person syndrome is peculiarly American. Part of that has to do with the way the educational business is run in the U.S. It’s not based on how much you can teach your child: it’s based on how much money the suppliers of basic materials can make off your child. Somewhere along the line most people pick up the desire to be a cool person, which is just another way to make them buy things. Once you’ve decided that you need to be a cool person, it makes you a possible victim of anyone whose products are the equivalent of bottled smoke. Somebody tells you to buy this particularly useless item and you’ll be a cool person. No matter how stupid it seems, you have to buy it. Pet Rocks. Pringle’s potato chips. whatever it is — the newest, the latest. Since the cool-person thing is something you learn in school, and since the school business is pretty suspicious and definitely tied up with the government, it makes you wonder whether or not the desire to be cool is part of a government plot to make you buy stupid things.”
    -Frank Zappa, again

  • Dingbert

    Quotes to think about, from two very intelligent men:

    “It is not so very important for a person to learn facts. For that he does not really need a college. He can learn them from books. The value of an education in a liberal arts college is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think something that cannot be learned from textbooks.”
    -Albert Einstein, responding to Thomas Edison’s assertion that college is useless

    “If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library.”

    -Frank Zappa

    “The cool-person syndrome is peculiarly American. Part of that has to do with the way the educational business is run in the U.S. It’s not based on how much you can teach your child: it’s based on how much money the suppliers of basic materials can make off your child. Somewhere along the line most people pick up the desire to be a cool person, which is just another way to make them buy things. Once you’ve decided that you need to be a cool person, it makes you a possible victim of anyone whose products are the equivalent of bottled smoke. Somebody tells you to buy this particularly useless item and you’ll be a cool person. No matter how stupid it seems, you have to buy it. Pet Rocks. Pringle’s potato chips. whatever it is — the newest, the latest. Since the cool-person thing is something you learn in school, and since the school business is pretty suspicious and definitely tied up with the government, it makes you wonder whether or not the desire to be cool is part of a government plot to make you buy stupid things.”
    -Frank Zappa, again