A College Degree: Calculating It’s Worth

I wrote an article this morning regarding CNN’s coverage of the Craig’s List issue regarding pimping young girls. Quickly, I just want to say, it isn’t Craig’s place necessarily to do this, it is the responsibility of the people raising the people who turn to this type of behavior.

That leads me to what I want to discuss here. I’ll try to be brief but please understand how utterly disgusting this entire subject is to me. If I get out of hand, I’ll reign myself in and continue on another post. So, let’s get started.

I do want to also preface this story with the fact that I have a college degree. For that matter, I have a few college degrees including a graduate degree. And where does that leave me? Well, I can guarantee you that neither of those pieces of paper have ever allowed me to make the kind of money these young girls on CNN are making by serving as call girls, prostitutes or whatever you want to call them.

Look at it this way, do you know what Pamela Anderson’s* claim to fame was? If you don’t, I’ll let you Google it and find out. Do you know what Paris Hilton*, Nicole Ritchie* and Lindsey Lohan* did to become famous? Again, you can find that for yourself. What about Kim Kardashian*? See, I’m sure you know how at least one of those folks came to belong in the ranks of super-star celebrity status.

If not, check it out and come back.

As I had a conversation with someone on Monday who just happens to be a man but is equally disgusted by the whole issue as I am. The discussion started when I read about someone that I know who didn’t finish high school, got pregnant at 15, married and is now seen as a huge icon online. She is being pursued by various networks for promotion of their products. Another person with a bit of a different background, yet folks all over her for some reason or another that I have yet to understand.

With that, what I have to say is this, all of those people, the call girl, the prostitute, the two TV network ladies, all those celebrities, they make more money in one year that I’ve made in my lifetime. This is not one of those whiney why me post either.

This is point blank some truth here.

Later the conversation with my friend went like this…

me: oh yea, screw some piece of paper that says I am educated, heck, get another one that says I"m over-educated, geeez why bother

him: a college educated redneck I see? well don’t forget, this is the age where Kim Kardashian gets paid $10,000 a tweet because she released a sex tape

me: stupid me, not filming any of that wild stuff, geez

him: LOL, ya could have been rich! tsk tsk tsk

me: crap no, I had my head in a book not a.. never mind

That’s how the conversation went and you know what is so sad about it, I bet that conversation is being had by hundreds of folks all over the place right now. A college education in 2010 is worthless. A piece of paper that says I studied for 4, 6, 8 or 12 years and I busted my butt to get this crappy piece of paper and now I’m $500,000 in debt means nothing.

What makes it even worse is this, if me, that person with 3 degrees and an astronomical amount of debt wanted to get rid of the debt quickly, I could have chosen two routes,

1. I could have skipped the borrowing of money in student loans and moonlighted as a prostitute, call girl or put out some sex tapes of my self and paid my way through college without a hitch.

2. I could say, forget about the paper, I have to get out of debt, so I’m going to go pimp, prostitute, make sex tapes, whatever I gotta do to get out of debt, then I’ll use my education.

Sadly, by the time I paid that debt off, my papers wouldn’t be worth anything. Nothing! Even though the opportunity to make way more money by prostituting or making sex tapes would bring more money, those degrees don’t stay valid if you don’t use them.

You know, that brings me to this, just exactly which paper is more important right now, one that says, “I am a college graduate and I’m educated and I am willing to work because I had to work to get this degree in the first place” or a piece of paper that says, “I’m in the country legally but since I’m uneducated, the only way I have for earning money is to work for a pimp and prostitute myself out.”

I am so sorry if I offended you. But, as I warned you, this is not one of my favorite topics and I avoid it often. And, I may revisit it soon. But for now, I’m going to go take a nap because I’m completely hacked off.

* Look I made it easy to see what these folks did to make into the realm of the celebrity life.