A Ponzi scheme—named after Charles Ponzi—is basically robbing Peter to pay Paul. It operates by promising investors large rates of return on their money. To be able to pay those rates, the person running the scheme has to attract new investors to be able to pay the original investors their exorbitant returns. For the process to continue, new investors have to be continually drawn in. The system will eventually collapse when new investors dry up.
The most flagrant use of a Ponzi scheme was by Bernie Madoff, a Wall Street broker. He siphoned off billions of dollars from investors. He is now serving a 150-year life sentence in prison.
So what does this have to do with higher education you might ask? For universities or colleges to operate, there has to be a continuous stream of students helping to fund these institutions. The government is complicit in the scheme by doling out student loans. The return for the student is that he or she will have a reasonable outcome by graduating with a piece of paper, the reward being, a well-paid job. So why is this a bit of a fraud?
The reality for many students and parents is something other than what they were expecting. Excluding degrees in specialized fields like medicine, engineering or computer science, many degrees lead to a dead end. Students learn a lot about climate change, white privilege, critical race theory and gender studies, but basically graduate ignorant of history. They then dare to rail against their parents’ generation who helped fund their “education”. The parents have to wonder what they have unleashed.
Students go into college with great intentions. However, often after three or four years, they come out resenting student debt which they may never be able to repay. The parents who funded their child’s education must wonder what they got in return. This is especially timely as we see young people rioting on the streets of America with no rational programs other than wanting to destroy the system and institute a Marxist government. The big winners are the educational institutions as they skim off billions, regardless of the quality of the education that they provide. It really is a fraudulent scheme.
I am a product of higher education with two degrees that I received in the 1960s and 70s. In those years, students took out loans, but they were not prohibitive. Also, left-wing indoctrination was minimal. I took some classes in sociology, history and philosophy. Still, there was no bias demonstrated by the professors, one way or the other. The world was different then, even though we were in the age of sex, drugs and rock and roll. Anarchists were on the fringe, today they have become mainstream.
So there is only one solution. Parents need to stop supporting institutions which promote extremist ideology. They need to educate themselves as to the professors on staff and their viewpoints. We have been naive for a few decades and are now reaping the effects of institutional leftist indoctrination.
The other thing for students to consider is to go into “blue-collar” professions. Non-university technological colleges train people in satisfying jobs with excellent remuneration. Plumbers, electricians and carpenters are thriving in today’s economy. Many are operating their own business without having to answer to a boss. It’s time to change the paradigm of higher education. The moral obligation is to educate our children, not to finance institutions that may have an elitist reputation but which are hotbeds of radicalism.
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