This is about college. And honestly, this is just a whole rant that probably should have stayed in the drafts. But it didn’t.

I don’t have a college degree. I also have a learning disability. I am very lucky to have been able to waste a few years struggling in college. I blame much of my failure to complete college to my upbringing, with the jist of it being due to lacking emotional maturity, self discipline, serious lack of real world experience and understanding, and seriously crippling social anxiety. I blame myself for much of my failure, but some of it comes from simply not knowing any better. I do have to thank my campus clinic for being the first place to diagnose my ADHD and do what they thought was best to help me at the time. I also have to thank the “Study Skills” (or something close to that it was called) for showing me how to actually plan out my time and what it meant to study in a way that actually makes a difference, which is something I was never ever shown how to do before. Unfortunately I was made to take this class when it was too late.

I’m a bit shocked when I see such intense defense of college and universities on Tumblr. I mean, sure, I understand the value, but I guess in my corner of it Tumblr is the Class Consciousness Site that would realize fairly quickly that a certain issue isn’t isolated to some group of stupid or lazy people but a symptom of a wider problem inside and outside the walls of a college dorm or classroom. Specifically, the fact that more working class people are attempting to get a college degree not because it’s something they can afford, or have the time for, but something they are told they need even if the job is entry level and pays below living wage. Of course this is almost entirely the fault of those demanding this, but I think that fact doesn’t mean most of the for profit learning institutions are without blame. It seems like every time this possibility that acedmia might hold some of the keys needed to unlocking a solution to this growing issue is touched on, those who are employed in the industry and have stake in it take full offense to the bid for empathy and misinterpret the call for reform as a call to dismantle their livelihood and accessible knowledge itself. But has this knowledge ever really been that accessible?

Because that’s the part that academia has done a good job at pretending it’s not complicit in: The well off and privileged are absolutely the bulk of their clientele, and have been since it’s inception. Of course many involved in academic culture would never hide such a fact when approached, but fail often to first mention, and when it is mentioned, minimize the effect of this history. Of course, it’s hard to face the fact that your lifestyle and livelihood is possibly in part unnecessary polish (perhaps it is not), but to continue to pretend the road to a college degree is somehow a mostly perfect system is only going to continue to frustrate those desperate to be understood, to the point of sowing vitriol. The elitism is exhausting, and the constant obsession over precise language is a waste of time to those of the poorer working class, and the finger pointing to students making choices out of desperation is hateful and fruitless. Oh, should the students work harder? Should they push themselves? Or is it more likely that the very structure of a classroom is unfavorable to learning, college costing anything provides not only a financial barrier to knowledge in multiple ways, but this barrier of class has created a foundation of a lifestyle that in it’s very core values fails to recognize the struggle of the oppressed classes. I don’t know what else to say past that it’s in a glass house, but I’ll keep yapping anyway.

I am by no means knocking the value of knowledge. In fact, I would love it if every person in their 20’s (and beyond) could spend all their time an energy working on their understanding of the world, unlearning their worst traits and past misinformation, and practicing being more disciplined for themselves and themselves alone. There is so much good that college can be, and learning isn’t even the whole of it. However, the way this knowledge can be accessed is incredibly flawed. So much of academia has indeed become an upper and middle class echo chamber that fails to foster empathy for the lower class struggle and instead seems to just consume the perspective of oppressed classes in order to add to a growing collection of “things known”, simply to remain unused when this knowledge can matter most, and is much most difficult to apply, and instead becomes a topic of discussion and writing, perhaps sometimes of art, and much less of change in policy and structure. The growing sentiment among conservatives and the political right is misguided, at best, but not totally without truth; academia has failed to express it’s value among working class and skill based workers, while asking for a premium cost many of them cannot afford. Top this off with years of focus in regards to issues of class that are much more cerebral versus what tangibly and currently effects their community. Worse yet, the information needed to understand why some of these target issues matter is behind a paywall; of time, money, and transportation, assuming this person has no physical or learning disabilities. Is it really any shock that a bunch of rednecks stay ignorant when they were originally cut off frrom the knowledge and perspective that could have changed them? At this point, it’s probably too late, because now a bunch of financially savvy people in leadership realized making access to this as uncool and inaccessible as possible to this demographic is the key to remaining in control. Academia missed it’s window of opportunity, and I can only imagine the desire for profit being the motivator for this. Remember, class consciousness, while I’m sure was quite present on many 90’s and early 2000’s college campuses, failed to wield enough power to change all that needed to in regards to providing easier financial access to degree programs and living arrangements, disability accommodations, and transportation. Of course scholarships helped, but with the incredible costs of dedicating years of one’s life to a degree, it’s hard to say those solved the main issues with the structure, but instead served to confirm the validity of the rising expenses.

This is to say nothing of the serious issues with the units of measurement used to verify if a student has truly learned the material or not. It’s strange, when you know that there is no true universal way of measuring someone’s understanding of a subject and yet this element has failed to dramatically evolve over time due to any testing this structure itself has gone through. I’m sure the memorization of dates and the ability to convince a teacher of understanding seems foolproof to a lot of people who need it to be, but I am shocked that every single subject is tested within very similar means, knowing how wildly different they can be in how they’re understood and even taught. In my own experience in my own jobs, there is much of what I consider to be knowledge that elevates your performance unable to be taught or tested in these conventional ways. Some of it, however, is technical knowledge that can not only be taught on the job but the text or teacher can almost always be referred back to quickly and easily. Of course I am just one person with about 6 jobs in my life under my belt. But I have talked with many others who have the same experiences. Genuinely, I think many of us wonder if college really can offer us what we need in it’s curriculum or if we’ve been had and now we’re all in varying amounts of debt and lost time. I think many of those who live and breathe college and the few career paths it favors would assume we’re simply lacking the secret knowledge to know that it Really Matters, or that we must be some combo of too stupid and too lazy not to realize the truth that stands in our face. Perhaps, to them, we are just bitter we partied our way through these years and failed to honor the sacred institution that almost is never in the wrong. Maybe our feeble redneck minds couldn’t understand the textbooks that cost hundreds out of our pockets, we’re angry we had to confront The Truth About the World and our small town biases. Or maybe we chose the wrong degree and now we’re getting our just punishment for it. From their eyes, it seems it’s always just take-your-pick. I’m sure my shit grammar and some wrong detail here and there in this essay/rant has distracted and enraged a certain type of person to the point of completely missing mine. And perhaps, this is fine. Perhaps waiting to be understood and cared about is a waste of time and energy right now. I’m not sure appealing to empathy is really going to work these days when it’s easier to stereotype me as some flavor of “you don’t get it” because I’m not on my knees begging for understanding, I am standing and expressing my annoyance with all my frustration on display. I do not think just because you’re more intelligent than me, and have more academic experience than me, that you matter more than I do. That my perspective matters less and that my grievances shouldn’t be taken seriously. I see the methods of manipulation used when other people like me say something and I’m sick of playing that game.

(so I won’t. I’m just going to say what’s on my mind and leave it at that. I will most likely not respond to debate about this, which I am aware makes me a hypocrite, but I don’t see the use of debating when I know there’s going to be little mutual understanding, it just seems like it’s going to be an emotional mess since I’ve also started this discussion off emotionally)

things that are related to this that have begun to lose my trust:

-psychology industry -therapy industry -journalism industry -postmodernism (not in a weird right wing way, but in a “we lost the plot and now marginalized people suffer for it” way)

as you might expect, most of my issues lie in these things becoming profit motivated.

addition:

And if I can add to all of this, I have to ask: If the 40 hour work week has been shown to be antithetical to productivity, and can even be harmful to the worker, why is this the standard for most college degree programs? Of course you do in some way have a choice, except things like financial assistance comes into play, which it usually does. Not only that, but 8 hours a day for classes doesn’t factor in time to study or do homework. This amount of work being systemically forced onto most students (and almost all the disadvantaged ones) is overwhelming to the average person, and even more painful for those with disabilities. Seriously, why is 4 years the standard in the first place, and why is there little flexibility in how classes are paced? I actually think I would have responded well to a four hour class every weekday about the same subject until that class was complete, and I feel very confident saying I would have easily passed a class structured this way and perhaps even taken on another while either working or sudying in the extra time given. But from what I was told and made to do, this was not an option. Why? Why do I need to have so many subjects at once if my goal is to land a career that will likely not reflect this schedule? If much of the knowledge is compounded, it should be no issue that I choose to learn it at a different pace, and chronologically at that. I fail to understand why I need to be molded into this type of person to be worthy of a degree. Could this all be an extension of the public school system’s original motivator, which is to mold compliant and competent workers? I thought what mattered here was learning, but when I try to learn the way that fits myself best, that doesn’t seem to cause anyone else problems, I’m told this can’t be done. Is that actually true?

And to touch on online classes, yes I do enjoy them, since they’re all I can really do but unfortunately every class isn’t offered online during my time. However, I do love in person discussion. I’m actually WAY more articulate and capable in person only by merit of most people better suited for text discussion. I think there’s a lot of subtle nuance in conversation irl that will never make it to the internet, even with video calling. I don’t think being made to do classes online is the answer to my personal issues but I suppose it beats nothing. What annoys me is that some classes I’ve heard are now expecting attendance to zoom-style classes that kill a lot of what makes the online class have appeal for me in the first place, which is self-paced self study and fewer deadlines. Honestly, I think teachers are failing to understand how to make the classrom structure most efficient to their students, but it’s also possible this is something forced from the top, or even a byproduct of the teachers also being overworked.

So, I conclude my addition, but I really hope I haven’t come across as someone wanting to kill people’s teaching jobs or as if I’m some anti-intellectual type. I’m not. I know I am severely under-educated in a lot of things, and I’m just at a real loss when it comes to understanding why people like myself deserve to waste their money and fall through the cracks with nothing to show for it. I guess I just get so frustrated that every entry level job I know I have the skills and experience (perhaps if the employer actually contacted the references!) will auto-reject my application if it doesn’t say I have a degree. At this point, I have considered just lying on the resume because I doubt I would ever get caught anyway. I don’t WANT to lie, or cheat, or anything like this to get something, but I am starting to feel less and less like I have a choice in the matter. I don’t have the money to go back to college and I doubt there’s any special financial aid for people like me. But even if there was, despite all the hard work and expertise I’m capable of, I fear it simply won’t be good enough to earn a degree under the same conditions that failed me before. I think there’s a lot of people who can relate in some way, and I think it’s the easy way out to assume myself and other people are at fault entirely for that.