Students wave signs, change world

Hey everyone! Big news! Students think they pay too much for school! Oh...oh wait a minute. They have rallies every year. They have rallies about many things, too - the young and naive idealism of that generation, some might say. But nothing brings more students together for a common cause than to complain about how much money they have to pay to go to university.

Granted, I am not an ideal candidate to write about their plight. Yes, I was a university student at one time, but I did not borrow a single cent during those four years. In fact, when I was done, I had a vehicle and a house. I still have something to say, though, and since this here soapbox is for saying things, that is what I will do.

I don't agree with you, protesting students. As nice as it would be for everyone to get free university and study whatever they wanted and live in eternal happiness, it is not the case now and it will not be the case ever. Society is structured around incentives, and in the past years it just seems to me that the incentives are artificially weighted too heavily in favour of going to university. Perhaps it is unfortunate that a person's financial state is of such importance in their choice, but it has to factor in there somewhere.

Problem 1 - horrific use of resources - How many university students do you know that are losing weight or going to the food bank because they can't buy adequate food? And how many do you know that drink Starbucks and eat at the cafeteria everyday? How many people in the rally today were wearing Parasuco jeans and fancy watches and designer shoes? How many spend gratuitously at the bar on the weekend?

Problem 2 - bad choices - Who wants a degree in English Literature? How about a BA in Philosophy? What's that, you can't get a job? SURPRISE. Sometimes, if you want to do what you love, you are going to be poor. If you don't want to be poor...you have to do something else. Are all these students aware that, if they wanted to do a trade, they would get paid while they work, and collect EI while they were in classes? Yes, the government subsidizes that training too, because we need more tradespeople. Making university cheaper is not going to solve this problem, and I would think it would exacerbate it.

Problem 3 - time management - I know way too many students who would rather build up debt than work at a crappy part-time job during the year and full-time in the summer. "I need to study," I hear. "I don't have time for that!" Well, you still have time to watch your tv shows every night and go out with the boys from class for beer and the game on Monday and your rez floor-mates every Thursday for wings and talk on MSN for three hours every night, so there is no sympathy from me. I don't see "going to school/partying" as more balanced than "going to school/working to pay for school."

Problem 4 - greater good - If taxpayers are supposed to subsidize higher education, will they get a benefit from it? I don't know. I seem to remember reading a survey from Career and Placement Services saying that "under 30%" (the lowest level) of graduates from my faculty were employed in the industry within two years of graduating. Same numbers for the Faculty of Arts. Doesn't seem like that subsidizing is doing a lot of good in many cases.

I don't hate students. I know it is expensive to go to school. I don't mind some of my tax dollars going to deserving students, and to the research and development done at institutions of higher learning. I just don't think that freezing tuition and continuing to write off millions of dollars on defaulted student loans every year is the answer. And it's MY soapbox, so I can tell you that.