The Collapsing Educational System

Monty Pelerin / EconomicNoise.com

As the world is forced to adjust to new realities, collapse is coming. This collapse will be systemic, although may not be simultaneous. What I mean by that is most of our major systems are under pressure and will collapse and/or be shrunken. True systemic collapse does not necessarily require all systems to collapse simultaneously. That is possible, although it is more likely that we are going to see an on-going series of collapses that are spread out over several years.

To understand what is happening to this country (and much of the world), realize that everything no major public system or institution is better off today than it was ten, twenty, thirty years ago. None is as strong and viable as it once was. All live on borrowed time. All ignore their condition and continue to operate as if times were normal. Eventually, all will be forced to radically adjust methods and means to the reduced resources available.

Government at all levels is worse off in terms of its ability to fund itself via taxes or borrowing. New funds from these sources will not be forthcoming, or certainly not in the amounts necessary to sustain current programs. Yet governments continue to expand as if there were no consequences. The litany of failed and failing programs is large and need not be listed here.

Brett Arends focuses on one such failure – the fraud of the higher education. Imagine a commencement speech that contained the following few sentences:

Consider this: You have just paid about three times as much for your degree as did someone graduating 30 years ago. That’s in constant dollars – in other words, after accounting for inflation. There is no evidence that you have received a degree three times as good. Some would wonder if you have received a degree even one times as good.

It would be impolitic to explain the scam so simply, especially at such a time for joy and celebration. Yet that is exactly the situation that exists.

Mr. Arends uses the term “college-industrial complex” to describe the competing forces that exploit the hopes, dreams and bank accounts of youngsters and their parents. This complex will eventually collapse because it is impossible to sustain with stagnant or falling standards of living. Increasingly people see the scam for what it is.

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http://Monty Pelerin / EconomicNoise.com