(U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Gabrielle Spradling)
Everyone knows that ideas originating in Chicago have got to be brilliant. After all, they elected Rahm Emanuel as their mayor, and what a guy he is. So what could possibly go wrong with the New Mexico legislature considering a plan to force high-schoolers to apply to college as a condition of their escaping the twelve-year public school system?
Mary Hudetz and Morgan Lee, of the Associated Press, report that this is precisely what some politicians in New Mexico have proposed.
The bill sponsored by Rep. Nate Gentry, a Republican, and Daniel Ivey-Soto, a Democrat, would make it mandatory for public school juniors to apply to at least one two- or four-year college. Exceptions would be made for students who can prove they have committed to military service, a vocational program, or work upon graduation in an apprenticeship or internship. Parents and school guidance counselors would have to approve of the students' plans.
How sweet.
It’s a bi-partisan plan.
And those who are wary of the state in general, and in favor of individual choice and peace in general might be familiar with the late George Carlin’s adage about bipartisanism. He said, “The word ‘bipartisan’ usually means some larger-than–usual deception is being carried out.”
In this case, it’s the pubic relations spin that this is something beneficial, when it is merely another move by political elitists to smother freedom and control people.
I reported on the move by Rahm and company in July last year, and thought that average folks would see the news and steer clear of this kind of officious over-lording. But I forgot that politicians aren’t average folks. They’re better than we are. Far more “advanced” and “forward-thinking”. And they know the infinite value of forcing kids to spend their time applying to college, or running through hoops to do what school advisors with towering piles of extra-useless summer-gotten degrees and puffed-up salaries want them to do.
Dance, kids. They’re the law in town.
And what a value it is!
As many college graduates are realizing, and as Mike Rowe has noted, college isn’t the panacea it’s portrayed to be. Many kids are far better off learning trades, apprenticing, taking time off between high school and work in order to travel. But now, New Mexico’s brilliantine political class wants to funnel kids into college.
Haven’t we had enough of that? Thanks to the federal government subsidizing students to go to schools via grants and unnaturally low-interest college loans, we’ve seen runaway inflation in college tuitions and grade inflation as students who shouldn’t even be in college are accepted by a mind-numbing myriad of schools across the US.
"There's a reason we call graduation commencement because it's the beginning of their future," Ivey-Soto said. "Let's take that seriously."
Isn’t twelve years of controlling the lives and education of other human beings enough for them? Isn’t that power over others sufficient to slake their hubristic hunger?
You can bet many college professors and administrators don’t think so. This will be beneficial for them, keeping demand up at a time when some prospective students might choose to avoid college. After all, with an expanding economy and lower taxes, why not take advantage of the increased demand for employees, rather than go into debt? The debt previous students have built up is unsustainable, and college faculties have lived high on the inflated hog for far too long. Barack Obama already “adjusted” the debt of millions in 2010, leaving taxpayers with the tab, and the coming college loan crash appears to be inevitable, looming in the trillions.
Do these “bipartisan” politicians in New Mexico want to make the implosion even more spectacular? As they talk of “helping young people” set themselves on the path to the future, do they want to make that path as poisonous and debt-ridden as possible?
It seems so. Even as they talk of caring for “the next generation”, they saddle those not yet born with debt they will have to pay back in the form of taxes to pay off the defaulted college loans of previous generations. It’s one of the most immoral, egregious, and insidious forms of enslavement ever foist on people, and it all comes from “trying to make the future better” through force.
How about the politicians learn? How about they try something different,a nd leave people alone for a change?