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By Ted Rall
T Stephen King's noveila The Long Walk. the Diqgest event in
A, I I post-aDocaivptic America is an annual race-waik featunng a
hundred boys. To ensure a lively pace, flatbed trucKS carrying sol
diers shadow them aionq the side ct tne roao. Whenever their speea
falls below three miles an hour, the soldiers bark out a warning. The
fourth time, they get shot. The contestants nike aown 1-95 until
they're blown away or arop dead of exhaustion. The last survivor
receives The Prize. The Prize is anything the winner desires. The
Prize is all anyone ever talks about. After the crowas go home, the
winner is quietly executed.
In pre-apocaiyptic Amenca, parents force their kids to run an 18-
year-long marathon for a similarly futile remnant of the American
Dream called The Promise. Graduate from the right college. The
Promise goes, and you'll learn all you need to know, land a good
job, have a great life. The catch is that you have tc survive count
less filters — grades, tests, demographics, tuck — to get into a
good school. Foi the lucky few, being admitted is mereiy a preiuae
to the ultimate challenge: finding the casn to rav insanely high
tuition bills. For most the only answer is to take out huge student
loans, setting up yet another financial gauntlet to survive iona after
graduation. In no time at all. The Promise says youll pay bacx the
loans, earn more money than the losers wno aidnt make it ana
leave your mas an oDsceneiv huge mnentance.
The Promise is based uDon several faulty premises:
• College moKes you more marKetaoie. esceciatly aunng cifficutt eco
nomic times. Although there are a tew advantages to being a college
graduate wnen you re looking for worn, the difference is slight com
pared to the cost of tuition and fees.
• Highly competitive admissions processes seiect for the oest ana the
brightest. Given the way society selects who will go to college, there
is little evidence of this. Having worked in an admissions office at a
highly comnetitive university, I can assure you that the process is
arbitrary as hell. Often che best and brightest don't stand a chance.
• Without a degree, you will shnvel up ana aie like a desiccated bug.
Actually, you might be better off both financially and professionally.
• Although the Pest way to ensure a mgh-paying job is to major in
something "practical," a liberal-arts aegree is oetter than none at ail.
Wrong. There's no financial advantage to going to college as a liber
al-arts major.
• College is a worthwhile learning experience, vital to shaping the
leaders of tomorrow. College students mainly learn now to fuck,
snooze and get soused.
I understand The Promise well. My mother, uke many immigrants,
was obsessed with the importance of education. Because she was a
high school teacner. by age 10 I <new ail accut sucking up to
teachers to set ud otters of recommenaaf>cn entering essay con
tests to get scnoiarsmrs and .ciunteenno to vcr* *or my local
Congressman to get sponsored for tne c: tne military acaoemies. ? *y
entire life From tnen on was oevotea to tne srngie goal of gaining
admittance to anc t nannng attercar.ee at a uestigious eastern
university — veauy an Ivy .eacue srhoci. > ccnth grade I
planned out alt 56 ot my hign stnool c.asses t 1 reuen senior year
and I stuck to my plan. I worked tnree cts tc sa^e money for
school, but xeot the money in cast! in my safety Geposit box (so tne
financial aid office wouldn't take it into consideration). I joined
countless mane extracurricular activities because I thought they'd
help me get into a good sc! cci (I ca r st ll feei t h e polyester cutht I
wore in n.arci.ir g tana wf \e p^ay rg the clarnet part tc "Don't Cry
Gut Loud iJust Keep It Inside)"), uke most teens, I wanted to go to
parties etc., but I worked on extra-credit assignments instead. I
couldn t let anvthing stand in tne way of escaping my Ohio subum.
In tne end, I got into Columbia. Because I'd done well in math
and science in high school, my mom insisted that I pursue an engi
neering degree. (Parents often confuse academic ability for inter
est.) "Look at your dad," she said. "He makes good money." I knew
she was right. But courses like Nuclear Engineering E3001 and
Partial Differential Analysis G4305 didn't hold my interest for long. I
slept through almost every lecture, either in bed or in class. Three
years rater. I'd racked up an impressive string of Ds and Fs, particu
larly in physics. When my dean called me to tell me I'd been
expelled, he told me they couldn't decide whether it was for acade
mic or disciplinary reasons. I had 24 hours to vacate my dorm.
By early 1990, I was working at a bank. (I'd told my employers
that I had a degree to get the job.) The phone hadn t rung much
since the 87 stock market crash, and a lot of my friends had already
gotten laid off. Motivated by fear and boredom I reapplied to
Columbia, but as a instc'y major (I'd been reading a lot of Vichy
France books;. I was snocked that they admitted me: maybe my old
discipline records got lost. I still wasnt convinced that blowing
525,000 in savings cn one year of school was a wise move — my
536 000 salary disqualified me for financial aid — but I was worn
cown from listening to my mom and future in-laws hassle me about
t. I wanted to finish what I'd begun ten years earlier and looked
Forward to being an undergraduate at age 28.
I graduated in 1991. Since then, the central premise of The
Promise has evaporated. Measured by traditional indicators like the
Dow Jones average and the unemployment rate, the U.S. economy
has boomed, but the average employee hasn't noticed. Not only are
corporations not hiring, but they ve laid people off 43 million times
since 1979. From 1990 to 1994, the top 5 percent of wage-earners
saw their paychecks rise 17 percent. The rest of us lost ground.
Most Americans go to college in order to land on the first rung of
the comfy, safe corporate ladder. Now that those corporate jobs are
either low-paying or non-existent, we should ask ourselves:
WHY GO TO COLLEGE?
In Amenca, the selection process for college is quite arbitrary.
First- and second-grade teachers armed with IQ exams disguised as
aptitude tests" mark kids as college — or ?-Eleven — bound with-
n tne first few months of school, from that point forward, tne fate
of Amencan children is virtually predetermined. Nonetheless, col-
ege-tracked students are expected to spend the next 12 ^ears
: iepanno tor the ccileae application process. Even for the fortunate
.vno nave been selected, a minor sup-up can ,eao to developing an
otimate knowledge ot deep-frying.
lolleoe-bouna" students, aevote tnem childhoods to the nope cf
ieceivmg a tnick lettei from a ccueoe admissions ofhee. Iney join
cheesy act’viries they dont reau\ nke: student government, march-
•*.g tana ..atm Club, yearbook, ney r.vest hundreds cf dollars on
test-pep courses for the PSA*. AP ano SAT. 7 her tney tare the tests
again — as many as four times — to raise iheir scores. Plagued by
"seniontis" and burned out after more than a decade of college
prep, some may be tempted tc iet themgua'd down but ’t's best to
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