Sunday, October 19, 2003
I read once that one of the driving forces behind establishing a public school system in the New England colonies, above and beyond all of the altruistic, visionary stuff, was to basically get a whole lot of trouble-making, roaming kids off the streets. It was a practical solution really: build brick fortresses to lock down unruly Huckleberry types under the pretense of enlightenment.
Our schools still do just that but now it has of course become a whole new marketing-savvy ball game directed at very specific target markets and designed to prolong the growing-up-process for as long as possible. Why? Well is an 18-year-old individual out on his own likely to have a lot of expendable cash laying around at the get-go of his/her career? Likely not. But what if you can somehow make that 18-year-old dependent on parents for at least another four years because those parents have a mole-hill-to-a-mountain of more disposable income accumulated than said impoverished youngling? Why you've just thought up a brilliant way to pump billions of dollars into an economy highly dependent on CONSUMING more and more.
Daughter and I just went down to visit UPenn in Philly. A pit of a city on the outskirts and not because of all of the smoke stacks and signs of industry. After all there has to be industry somewhere. A pit because all of that industry looks like it is just holding on for its miserably-dilapidated, worn-down dear life. And may I just say that the new location for the Liberty Bell, a 60-block-round-trip-walk from our hotel, is rather strange -- they expect you to stand in a quarter-mile-long line to see a bell housed under a glass chamber to which you must snake your way around a plot of green Commons (we opted for the looking-from-a-distance-view which meant we got to see the bell but not the crack... Darn.
UPenn is a beautiful and impressive campus. When all is said and done, they want $40,370 a year for out-of-state residents. Loved how when daughter and I inadvertently landed in the Philly-resident Open House and picked up one of the folders there, a staff person, after realizing we weren't locals, ran after us and grabbed the folder out of my hands. "Oh, may I have that please? You need to go over to College Hall for your presentation. I'm sorry." God forbid I see all of the marketing promises made to in-state students in their glossy brochure let alone see the in-state price break they get. The $40K-plus for out-of-state residents doesn't include laptop, trips home, Abercrombie sweaters, or care packages. An estimated 19,000 students will be submitting applications to vie for the 3,000 or so freshman spots available and the privilege of paying this tuition plus hikes over the next four years. But if you are so lucky to get chosen (and luck is pretty much what it comes down to these days), you feel so relieved, so special, so elite that you'd be willing to pay anything. If you don't believe COLLEGE hasn't become a business no different than selling Gap jeans Click On This Link; Noel-Levitz is an enrollment management firm that gives colleges advice on how to attract the students they want. The site says, "The analysis prepares your institution to compete effectively in its marketplace and to distinguish itself from institutions vying for the same student populations."
For another significant group of youth's geraffle [a word I just made up from my German-speaking origins meaning not quite perhaps up to college snuff but wanting to make something of oneself above and beyond dead-end jobs] -- there is the military. This is where being a wealthy country really comes in handy. We can blissfully afford to keep a large swath of testosterone-spastic tendencies good n' tired via the US Army, Marines, Navy, etc. And provided these younglings don't get killed in combat, they get some very good job training/college education to boot. The alternative would be horrendous as anyone who has been unemployed for a long time knows; no job messes with your head in bad ways. Imagine all of these young men now serving in the military instead roving around in today's economic environment unemployed... Not good. Not good. Just look at all of the troubles the Saudis are having for not having figured out a plan for how to keep the idle hands of 70% of their population under the age of 25 busy even though they have gobs of cash with which to have come up with a strategy of some kind. No plan spells trouble with an upper case T.
The 'fringe' dead-enders (those who end up with the McDonald's and Wal-Mart jobs), we try to keep appeased with cheap food that makes them so lethargically fat they don't have the gumph to protest that they have no health care benefits and have no chance at the 'American Dream' advertised on 564 channels 24/7. Resounding success to report on this front.
And then there is Europe's youth. Which thanks indirectly to the U.S. can afford all of its progressive social programs given that they pay about 2 to 5% on military vs. the U.S. spending 26% federally. The Europeans, for all of the aesthetic uumpa I truly adore, remind me of petulant teenagers sometimes: "I hate you but could you drive me to the mall?...." kind of thing.
"So," my visiting European brother-in-law inquired as he looked around my A-bomb disaster house in the midst of renovations, "do you still have a cleaning lady coming in?"
"Why?," I asked. "Does it look like we need one?"
"No, no, I was just wondering..."
"Every other week," I answered. "Do you still have Theresa coming?"
"Well we have cut down her hours now that the kids are grown. We only have her four hours a day now instead of eight."
"Four hours a day... [a cultural disconnect occurs at this moment]. Have your kids ever made their own bed on washed their clothes? You realize that you are all spoiled brats... " I say this in just such a way that he can't tell whether I am teasing or not. "Well you must go back and say that your poor American brethren had an inch of dust all over the house and gave you passes to the nearby health club so that you could take a shower!"
Our schools still do just that but now it has of course become a whole new marketing-savvy ball game directed at very specific target markets and designed to prolong the growing-up-process for as long as possible. Why? Well is an 18-year-old individual out on his own likely to have a lot of expendable cash laying around at the get-go of his/her career? Likely not. But what if you can somehow make that 18-year-old dependent on parents for at least another four years because those parents have a mole-hill-to-a-mountain of more disposable income accumulated than said impoverished youngling? Why you've just thought up a brilliant way to pump billions of dollars into an economy highly dependent on CONSUMING more and more.
Daughter and I just went down to visit UPenn in Philly. A pit of a city on the outskirts and not because of all of the smoke stacks and signs of industry. After all there has to be industry somewhere. A pit because all of that industry looks like it is just holding on for its miserably-dilapidated, worn-down dear life. And may I just say that the new location for the Liberty Bell, a 60-block-round-trip-walk from our hotel, is rather strange -- they expect you to stand in a quarter-mile-long line to see a bell housed under a glass chamber to which you must snake your way around a plot of green Commons (we opted for the looking-from-a-distance-view which meant we got to see the bell but not the crack... Darn.
UPenn is a beautiful and impressive campus. When all is said and done, they want $40,370 a year for out-of-state residents. Loved how when daughter and I inadvertently landed in the Philly-resident Open House and picked up one of the folders there, a staff person, after realizing we weren't locals, ran after us and grabbed the folder out of my hands. "Oh, may I have that please? You need to go over to College Hall for your presentation. I'm sorry." God forbid I see all of the marketing promises made to in-state students in their glossy brochure let alone see the in-state price break they get. The $40K-plus for out-of-state residents doesn't include laptop, trips home, Abercrombie sweaters, or care packages. An estimated 19,000 students will be submitting applications to vie for the 3,000 or so freshman spots available and the privilege of paying this tuition plus hikes over the next four years. But if you are so lucky to get chosen (and luck is pretty much what it comes down to these days), you feel so relieved, so special, so elite that you'd be willing to pay anything. If you don't believe COLLEGE hasn't become a business no different than selling Gap jeans Click On This Link; Noel-Levitz is an enrollment management firm that gives colleges advice on how to attract the students they want. The site says, "The analysis prepares your institution to compete effectively in its marketplace and to distinguish itself from institutions vying for the same student populations."
For another significant group of youth's geraffle [a word I just made up from my German-speaking origins meaning not quite perhaps up to college snuff but wanting to make something of oneself above and beyond dead-end jobs] -- there is the military. This is where being a wealthy country really comes in handy. We can blissfully afford to keep a large swath of testosterone-spastic tendencies good n' tired via the US Army, Marines, Navy, etc. And provided these younglings don't get killed in combat, they get some very good job training/college education to boot. The alternative would be horrendous as anyone who has been unemployed for a long time knows; no job messes with your head in bad ways. Imagine all of these young men now serving in the military instead roving around in today's economic environment unemployed... Not good. Not good. Just look at all of the troubles the Saudis are having for not having figured out a plan for how to keep the idle hands of 70% of their population under the age of 25 busy even though they have gobs of cash with which to have come up with a strategy of some kind. No plan spells trouble with an upper case T.
The 'fringe' dead-enders (those who end up with the McDonald's and Wal-Mart jobs), we try to keep appeased with cheap food that makes them so lethargically fat they don't have the gumph to protest that they have no health care benefits and have no chance at the 'American Dream' advertised on 564 channels 24/7. Resounding success to report on this front.
And then there is Europe's youth. Which thanks indirectly to the U.S. can afford all of its progressive social programs given that they pay about 2 to 5% on military vs. the U.S. spending 26% federally. The Europeans, for all of the aesthetic uumpa I truly adore, remind me of petulant teenagers sometimes: "I hate you but could you drive me to the mall?...." kind of thing.
"So," my visiting European brother-in-law inquired as he looked around my A-bomb disaster house in the midst of renovations, "do you still have a cleaning lady coming in?"
"Why?," I asked. "Does it look like we need one?"
"No, no, I was just wondering..."
"Every other week," I answered. "Do you still have Theresa coming?"
"Well we have cut down her hours now that the kids are grown. We only have her four hours a day now instead of eight."
"Four hours a day... [a cultural disconnect occurs at this moment]. Have your kids ever made their own bed on washed their clothes? You realize that you are all spoiled brats... " I say this in just such a way that he can't tell whether I am teasing or not. "Well you must go back and say that your poor American brethren had an inch of dust all over the house and gave you passes to the nearby health club so that you could take a shower!"
Comments:
Post a Comment
