Lyle Northey (Silent/Boomer)

The value that is placed on higher education, monetarily speaking, would be better understood if that money were being spent on educational resources. Most colleges and universities have very large athletic departments and a good deal of the money taken in goes to support that “resource”. Athletic scholarships are a common item on most schools’ wheel of fortune and that has always been a bit of a question for me. What attribute does one have to have to earn one of these scholarships? What is it about the person that has an average GPA but does really well on the football field that makes him such a catch for any institution of higher learning?

I am aware that a great many people cannot believe anyone would ask such a question, it is almost unthinkable. Everyone knows that football is what makes a college great, not the academic department but the athletic department. That is why coaches make more than professors and even more than the dean, it is that important.

The student that becomes a top doctor or engineer or whatever that relies on usings one’s brains to make a better world will never get his or her name into the book of alumni of the greatest because that book is reserved for the athletes. Most of the really important discoveries and inventions of our world did not come from a locker room, they came from a lab. The people that study and develop and invent are the people that should be celebrated but are often ignored. There are folks that are fountains of knowledge about who won what game or prize that cannot tell you who invented the polio vaccine or developed the system to stop and elevator from falling.

Not making it to college does not mean that you are stuck flipping burgers because there are trade schools that need students. It is helpful if you don’t mind getting dirty and doing some hard work. As odd as it may sound, we still have need of people that can build things and repair things. One of the issues with putting in solar power is that power companies think that if we lose the grid or limit it, we are going to put them out of business. If they were to get the people working for them now trained to service, the solar equipment they could offer another service and remain a viable business.

Another way to get an education is to join the military, which only about 1% of our population does. This will require a willingness to put yourself in harm’s way and to be a part of a different way of life. The educational opportunities are there if you wish to take advantage of it and many people have attained master’s degrees and some even PHD’s.

The difference between being in a suit and tie or a coverall job is illustrated very well by a British Comedy called “Are You Being Served”. The plot takes place in a department store and most of the characters are sales staff that have a pecking order of when they are able to wait on a customer and as a result how much they make. The one character is the maintenance man, and he is a union employee. It does not matter to him how many or if any customers come in the store as he gets paid and very well it seems like his pocket is always full. The sales people not so much the leads do okay, but the others are always short.

Getting back to the college education issue, we need to find a way to make it possible for those that desire to follow that path to do so without putting them in debt for the rest of their lives. We need to find a way for people to have treatment for illnesses without causing bankruptcy as well. Other countries accomplish these things and still seem to prosper so the question has to be Why Can’t We?

On a political level we need to start electing people that will do “the right thing even when no one is looking” instead of the self-serving money-grubbing lot that we have been getting for quite some time. Our national educational status has been going downhill for long enough. We need to put quality education back on the agenda for this nation along with school safety and if that means gun control, so be it. At present we are the only nation that has live shooter exercises in our public schools, aren’t we proud?