The American Student Today, Pt.1
How frequently do you hear your friends and acquaintances mention how dissatisfied they are with their schooling? It has become ridiculously common that someone I know feels disgusted by either their chosen academic pathway or their everyday interaction with fellow students whose repulsive actions might as well be attributed to an equal amount of educational disgust. It’s true: students today are stuck. One way or another, the amount of discontent that the American student has for her academic and intellectual life is beyond worrisome. I can’t help but wonder how much longer things may bend but not break.
First of all, it’s important to realize what I’m not talking about. The phenomenon to which I refer is not related to the accusation that human beings biologically prefer laziness or “the easy way out.” It is not related to accusations that young people or millenials have been overly pampered. It is not related to the accusation that young people in America would simply prefer to ‘GTL’ rather than work.
What I am talking about is the way that American schools (regardless of level) have pauperized the American student. Students, both eager and reluctant, have found no relief from the capitalist market as they partake in the intellectual life of the university. Even with the semblances of free public education offered by in-state grants and ‘lottery scholarships’, no student is currently escaping the ravages of a capitalist stronghold on the university. I’m not just talking about the blatant theft going on in law schools. I mean every school that offers what should no longer be called ‘education’ proper is profit-driven to the point of exploitation. Everyone has, by now, seen the numbers on tuition increases as they massively outpace inflation. Students everywhere have become victimized two-fold: not only are they not learning (and thus, acquiring real education), but they are also becoming indebted to the market. Every young person I know is obsessed, and rightly so, with what has often been referred to as ‘checkmarks’. Learn this so you can pass that. Complete this prerequisite to take that prerequisite. File this form so you can fill out that form. Get this degree so you can (attempt to) get that degree. Every market activity (and thus, every activity) we perform is now either to earn a checkmark or to forget, for a few fleeting moments, that we missed/failed/forgot one. And if you’re not currently making checkmarks on these lists (and by now you should know what ‘lists’ I’m talking about), you’ve already lost. At least according to the market.
It can only be hoped that these are the markers of late capitalism, and that new economic and social understandings might become both clarified and believable. The fact that we are now handed two things at graduation—a degree and a ‘debt repayment kit’—leaves little room for counter-argument. There isn’t a shorter straw than that, but that’s the one we’re being handed.
