Stop Telling Your Kids To Go To College

Introduction

There are certain givens in our culture. Indubitable truths that you can bank on as being certainly certain. So much so, that they are just presupposed in our way of life. That is, they are so foundational to our thinking and doing, so obvious to any right-thinking person that obviously being so obvious that we don’t need to give a justification for the obvious nature of the belief obviously. What are some of these certain and obvious truths you may ask. Well, how about death and taxes. Some may think those are synonymous, but many scientists will tell you that there is certainly a difference between an immediate death and a slow death.

However, there are also a couple more certainly certain, indubitable truths that we live by. The fruit of which is so gloriously glorious that challenging them in any way is tantamount to apostasy, somewhat like asking if Epstein really killed himself or if Joe Biden is really the most popular president to ever be “elected.” What are said truths you may ask? The first is that without government education we would all be a bunch of butt scratching Neanderthals and the Church would have no place to do evangelism. And second, that without a college education we would barely be able to survive being destined to eke out a meager existence by being a slave in a coal mine in Pennsylvania.

However, as we ponder and dare to question these bedrock truths of ours it might do us some good to remember that we live in clown world after all, where up is down and down is up and left is right and right is left and where chicks are dudes and dudes are chicks. So then, the vulgar incongruities that we see right in front of our face like we accidently stumbled upon a local story time with madame Peter should cause us to question things, like all the way down and all the way through.

One major question that most sensible people should ask themselves first is, how did this

happen? How did we get to this point? These are very important questions to ask because they get beyond the problems and seek to know the cause or causes of said problems. For example, removing all of the homo and trannie crap, and race bating commie crap out of the government schools isn’t bad. However, it begs the question as to why you would continue to send your children to a place that thought these things were necessary for your child’s development. Or even worse, that you would spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to do so, or encourage your children to enslave themselves through debt to do so all the while calling it higher education.

This should lead many to ask what came first, the chicken or the egg. Or rather, did our

government schools, K through college create clown world or did clown world create the current state education in our country? This is a good and necessary question because it is seeking causation. The implication being that if we fix or remove one, it will have a corresponding effect on the other.

Let me try and put this into perspective. If we look at the state of the church today and can easily conclude that the church is a hot mess across the board, we can and should ask ourselves is there a common variable? Despite all of the denominational and doctrinal differences across the board is there anything they have in common? That is actually a very easy question to answer. Ninety percent of evangelicals send their kids to government run schools, with the vast majority of those parents encouraging their children to then go on to college.

What is even worse than that, is that those parents who have chosen not to send their children to public school for principled reasons will still encourage their children to go to college. This may be what we call, “going full retard.” But why in the world would anyone do this let alone any Christian parent? The fact of the matter is we’ve all bought into the lie that the only way one could possibly get a job (because that’s the end goal of life) and make a living for oneself is to go to college. Without that, you would be cursing yourself and your children to a life of flipping burgers. If you’re a good parent, you have to tell your kids to go to college. Even better, as soon as they are born you should start saving money to that end.

In fact, the sole purpose of most public schools today is to get the kids into college. But why? Because college is the building built on the foundation poured in K through Twelve. College has become the “rights of passage” into adulthood and the culmination of almost two decades of worldview training which is meant to create serfs for the state.

The devil longer needs babies offered on the alter although he is still glad to take them. It is much more financially advantageous and perhaps more corporately soul crushing to enlist them into a lifetime of service. Unfortunately, most Christian parents are more than willing to sell their children in exchange for an education with the promise of a better way of life. But this is a Faustian bargain and the devil never delivers on his promises.

The Road to Serfdom

Stop telling your kids to go to college. Yes, children are also responsible, but nowhere near as responsible as their parents in this. More often than not, parents are the ones telling their children that they need to go to college. In part because they believe it’s the only way to get a head in this world. In part, because they didn’t go to college and they believe that their life would be better if they did like some sort of magic bullet. And also, in part because parents are part of the same public school system that they have been sending their children to that has been telling them from four years old and upwards that they have to go to college.

All of this converges in a perfect melting pot of guilt and obligation. Even most crappy parents still want their kids to succeed in life, even if it’s for completely narcissistic reasons. So then, how do you raise your children for success? Send them to K through twelve so that they can go to college. Having completed college, they will be more likely to get a job so that they can work a job they hate to buy things they don’t need to impress people they don’t like. Nothing like living the dream. No wonder people are so pumped full of antidepressants and alcohol that they could be mistaken for Nancy Pelosi at Happy Hour on any given Tuesday night.

So what’s my deal? Am I just against learning? Am I just against education? No, not all. The very fact that those are questions that pop into most people’s minds when the very idea of not going to college is proposed is an issue, and shows just how far down the rabbit hole we’ve fallen, or rather, how deeply ingrained this belief is. That is, that one must go to college to make something out of themselves. That is, that in order to be happy and successful and make a difference in the world one must go to college. This is so deeply ingrained in our culture that it has become foundational to one’s worldview in that it is a belief that you reason from not to. It is just presupposed and is foundational to all other beliefs. So much so that to question whether or not one should go to college is considered apostasy.

Should everyone go to college? Is this the best structure for learning? Do the numbers support this or just the opposite? Is there any vocation that would not be better served through discipleship, apprenticeships and trade guilds? College is one of the most significant financial investments that most people will make, and in some cases, is the largest single investment they will make. Is this a good investment? What’s the return on that investment?

Are seventeen and eighteen years olds equipped to make that decision? If this was any other industry that was structured the same way and financed the same way what would we call it? Has the government’s involvement in the college industry through subsidized loans improved the quality of education while reducing the cost? Has the government’s involvement created a more educated and well-rounded and better equipped and trained society or just the opposite? Has the government’s involvement been a net gain or a net loss? If this was any other industry wouldn’t we call this predatory lending?

Why is college necessary? Why has it become a” rights of passage?” Is there a better way

forward? Is there a better way to invest all that money? Is there a better way to learn? Is there a better way to network? Is there a better way to prepare for success? And so on? And none of these questions deal with the nature of what’s being taught. And even if what was being taught was good, should Christians support this structurally in any way? What about Christian colleges? Most of them should be ashamed of themselves and should be burnt to the ground, but we’ll come back to that.

Let’s return to the idea of “return on investment,” and the nature of economic serfdom, because it’s an important one and is a nerve that fires off in a multitude of directions. Hypothetically speaking, if I were to come to you and tell you that I have some magic snake oil to sell you, that when applied daily to your skin would all but guarantee that you would be more successful in life than if you were to go without it.

Although this snake oil was very expensive, you should see it as an investment in yourself, and that when one considers the possibility of future successes, said snake oil would actually pay for itself. It’s completely understandable if you cannot pay cash for the snake oil, after all, it’s very expensive. But given that I am such a kind-hearted and generous soul and because I want to make the world a better place and because I want you to succeed so badly I am willing to lend you the money, with interest of course, for the snake oil.

Let’s say, that after buying said snake oil, you return to me ten years later disgruntled,

demoralized and a little jaded. You truly believed in the snake oil and have religiously applied one drop a day for the last ten years and yet you are not happy and have not achieved the level of success that you thought it would grant you. Not only that, but you have been paying off this “investment” for ten years now and still owe seventy thousand dollars.

I assure you that you made the right decision and that the snake oil works when applied. Telling you that in fact, the snake oil has worked and is working and was a good investment because you have to consider how much worse your life would be if you had never bought the snake oil to begin with. Seeing this impeccable logic, and knowing yourself to be an amazing person that is not easily duped or taken advantage of you conclude that the snake oil was really a good investment. You then encourage your children to make the same investment to set them up for success as well which is further affirmation that you made the right decision.

Makes complete sense right? Who stands to benefit most from this? Well, who sold the product and who subsidized the loan? Who benefits most from your indebtedness? Is it possible to even determine whether not the product worked? How would you know? You would have to compare your life to ten years without it. What standards of measurement would you use? Kind of like injecting people with an experimental vaccine. Can you imagine how much faster people would have died had they not taken it? It’s a perfect scheme.

Most should be able to notice how painfully obvious my little allegory is, but then conclude that is certainly not the case regarding college which just goes to show how foundational this belief really is. We’re from the government and we’re here to help. Some may say I’m exaggerating to the extreme. O.k. maybe?

The government has been in the college industry for some time now through the subsidizing of loans and other tax benefits given to educational institutions. The government has been pumping money into this industry while at the same time using K through twelve to market that industry. So much so, that college has basically become a pay to play in the game of life.

The cost of college tuition has risen exponentially faster than the cost of energy, housing and health care. The cost of college tuition has risen four hundred percent from 1990 to today. Has there been at least an equal corresponding increase in average incomes and/or standard of living? Nope. If I told you that you should finance the purchase of a million dollar home because it was such a good investment that you would be able to sell it for five hundred thousand dollars in ten years you would say, “no thank you” perhaps with a few other words sprinkled in here and there. And yet, we are telling eighteen year kids to sign on the dotted line every day without caution and without warning.

Approximately two million-ish students will go to college this year. Of that two million,

approximately 1.4 million will take out loans for all or part of that. In 2019, families borrowed more than hundred and six billion dollars for college tuition. Right now, there are forty-five million Americans sharing 1.6 trillion in student loan debt with the average borrower having only paid off thirty-four percent of their debt after twelve years. If this were any other industry it wouldn’t be called predatory lending it would be called serfdom.

We’re from the government and we’re here to help. Many are beginning to realize what a

problem this is and what this much debt does to people. The solution proposed by some is to have the government pay off all of the student loans. This is worse than getting a credit card to pay off a credit card. It is forcing your neighbor to get a credit card to pay off your credit card. But if everyone is in debt and everyone is a slave than no one is, right?

Let Them Eat Cake

When most Christian parents think of sending their kids to college today they have already inculcated all of the cultural presuppositions regarding the divine necessity of a college education. However, given that this is something that they must do they find themselves caught on the horns of a dilemma. Do they send their kids to college thus exposing them to a degree of debauchery that would make Nero blush, or encourage them not to go to college thus all but ensuring that they will be absolute failures in life and bring disrepute upon their family name.

Whatever will these good Christians do? Before we answer this I think we should see a

correlation between the seemingly increased level of debauchery on most college campuses and the increased cost. Which is to say that the environment of debauchery goes along with the environment of economic serfdom. This not only ensures a steady stream of consumers, it also keeps consumers from asking too many questions while consuming. Let them eat cake.

So what’s the Christian solution, because we already know that kids have to go to college. Enter the “Christian college” which is exactly like the secular college minus the amount of debauchery which parents, of course, will have to pay a premium for. We are doing the exact same thing to our kids that the world is doing and in many respects riddling them with even more debt and enslaving them to the same government. However, when we do it, it’s justified because we call it Christian. These institutions know exactly what they are doing but can justify it to themselves because they have bought into all of the same lies and so have their parents.

As a pastor I have been able to talk with several college students over the years. I ask all of them what they want to do, and if they think college is the best way to get them there? I ask them how much it costs and whether or not they think that’s a good investment. After looking at me like I’m Sloth from the Goonies, because no one has ever asked them such stupid questions, they go on to repeat all of the same talking points that they have heard for the past twelve years.

If they were still in my church or I ran into them somewhere four years later the story was

always the same. They had gotten married to a girl they met in school who now wants to be a stay-at-home mom. And they are working a job, sometimes two, that is outside the field that their degree is in, unless it’s business administration which includes everything. They are usually scrapping to get by because before they could even get started in life they both brought a massive amount of student loan debt into the marriage. What about all of those people that told them they had to do this in order to get ahead? Is the government there to help them? No. Is the college there to help them? No. Is the church there to help them? No. Are their parents there to help them? In most cases, no.

The thing that blows my mind is that I’ll usually ask them after the realization that they are going to have to pay off that hundred and fifty thousand dollar student loan, do you still think that was a good idea? Every single time they have said yes it was worth it. Because if had they not gone to college they would have not had the experiences they did, nor met the people they did, and because they believe that things would be even harder had they not gone.

I have come to the conclusion that the vast majority of people will defend the stupidest decisions with there attendant consequences, because they believe that to be less painful then coming to terms with the fact that they made a bad decision and/or that they were taken advantage of, or severely misguided by people they love. If ever there was a case of Stockholm Syndrome…

Just as an aside, I think Christian colleges that offer degrees in fields that they know won’t

generate enough income to pay off the financing of said degree ought to be ashamed of

themselves. Also, any Christian institution that has no problem heaping debt upon young

Christian women should be ashamed of themselves. How is this justifiable? Well, it’s a free

market, and no one forced her to get the degree. Well, she wants to pursue her dreams of being a boss bitch. Well, at least she’ll always have a degree to fall back on. Well, at least she’ll be educated as she seeks to educate her children at home. The likelihood of which will probably never happen because she’ll be riddled with debt. All of these justifications suck, and these people know better.

Any institution that bears the name Christian should want to build strong marriages and families and homes. Riddling young women with debt that have every desire to want to be a stay-at-home mom, or perpetuating the feminists and egalitarian lies to young by encouraging them to pursue their careers all suck and is predicated by avarice and greed, but apparently we can feel good about it because we call it Christian.

Conclusion

Full disclosure. I have three masters degrees and I can honestly tell you that there is nothing that I learned from acquiring those degrees that I couldn’t have learned otherwise. I can also tell you that those degrees have granted me no advantage whatsoever in life. I have told all my children from a very young age that I want them to love learning and to honor the Lord with their minds and their gifts.

I have told them that I don’t want them to go to college and that if they believe that is something they need to do for whatever reason I would never pay for it because I think it’s the worst return on investment ever. However, this does not mean that I do not have an obligation to help set them up for success. Any money they or I would spend on college would be much better spent in the stock market or in real estate or in starting a business. Not only will they not have the debt accrued from college, but they will have four extra years of income generations on top of that.

When they ask about getting a job to make money, I always tell them to look where they can add value and then the money will follow. I tell them that no amount of money or degrees can buy humility, hunger and self-discipline, and if they seek to cultivate those things they will be much more valuable to the world without all the debt.

There is a lot of talk today about alternative Christian economies and the like. This is well and good, however simply baptizing paganism with the title of Christian, or rather doing everything the exact same way, but calling it Christian is not really an alternative, and this goes for education as well. Not only that, but it should probably be obvious to all, so let me say it, but trying to start an alternative economy by riddling it with debt is probably not the best way to start.

Until we learn to think differently about things and ask ourselves some basic questions. You know, the kind of questions that honest, inquisitive children ask before it’s removed from them in public school. Questions like, why are we doing this? Is there a better way to do this? What’s the return on investment? O.k., kids might not ask that last one, but they most certainly think in terms of incentives and rewards.

Everything that kids have been told regarding college is a lie. That it’s the best investment they will ever make. That’s demonstrably false, and is in fact most likely the worst, especially when you factor in the time value of money on all that debt. That college would make them more well-rounded (whatever that is). That’s not true. Our country is more tribalistic than ever. That college would make them more intelligent. We live in a country where men think they can be women and visa versa. Not only that, but we have more degree holders than ever in our country and Joe Biden is our President, so there is that. That college would ensure the path to the good life. Wrong again, people are more miserable than ever. That attending college would ensure a comfortable income, but no one told you how much of that income was going to go to paying off

their debt.

It is one thing when institutions and the government are taking advantage of you. It is quite another thing entirely, when those wounds are self-inflicted and we’ve deceived ourselves. This is even worse when it becomes generational. But you can keep rubbing that snake oil on. I am sure that eventually it’s magic will kick in. But as for me and my house…you know, you know the thing.