First, watch that video. Then we’ll talk more.
Done? Ok. Now, here is what Rick Santorum said the other day.
I think it is important for you to see him say that, out his mouth. And it is also important for you to know that he is right. Seriously. Rick Santorum is absolutely right about what he says in those two speeches.
People that go to college tend to see things differently than when they first come in. This is an old fact, one that many parents are fully aware of and Professors understand very well. First hand, I know this is true. I had issues with faith before I went to college, but I had a few years where I just didn’t believe in God. Not because of Professors or books, but because of the other students I was around. I was able, later, to come to my own conclusions. Most people, after they leave college, change their ideology again. But Rick Santorum left that part out.
He’s also right that President Obama believes that everyone should get a higher degree. I don’t have a personal opinion of the President, if he’s a snob or not. Nor do I care. But Rick Santorum is right that some people can achieve in college and that college isn’t for everyone and that, maybe, some people can’t go to college. He’s correct.
However,there is a very, very good reason why people should try and go to college. Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post says it better than me:
Only a fool or a liar is unaware that higher education is all but a prerequisite for success in the post-industrial economy; the unemployment rate for college graduates is just 4.4 percent, compared to 9.5 percent for high-school graduates. The idea that encouraging young people to go to college is really an attempt to lure them into indoctrination camps, or campuses, would be grossly insulting if it were not so comically paranoid.
I don’t think Rick Santorum is a fool or a liar. I think he’s a politician. But he’s saying things that many people believe and it’s good that we can reaffirm what is truth. Truth: This is no longer the 1950s, even though Rick Santorum and his followers really, really wish it was. You can’t work in a factory all your life and have the type of life you used to. That’s no longer possible, mainly because our government has made it very easy for corporations to send jobs overseas. Truth: There is nothing wrong with questioning your faith, and there is nothing wrong with deciding you might not want to believe something. This is America. You have the right to believe whatever you want. If you say that colleges indoctordate people, than you have to admit that churches do the same thing. And, just to finish this little monster off, if someone tosses away what they believe, how much did they believe it in the first place? And, finally, truth: I was born in a trailer in the back of a small, country town. My home was drafty in the winter and boiling in the summer. My life was hard and there was plenty of time where I thought that I should just work and work and work and never try to make a better life for myself. But I went to college. I studied as hard as I could. I have the job that I’ve always wanted. There is nothing special about me. If I can do it, anyone can do it. It’s wrong, morally horrible, for a person to say that someone shouldn’t try and go to college. It’s ignorance on a level that should bother all of us.
We deserve better politicians than this.
