I loved this quote from Laurie Essig, who writes for the Chronicle of Higher Education, the very first time I read it.
It’s time to return to the basics of educating young minds as best we can with the money we have. I say let the higher ups go find jobs in the for-profit world that they have tried to impose on academe. Let the student-life folks go work in social services outside the university. Let the weeds grow and the paint peel. And let’s make higher ed about educating young minds with the money we have and not the money they borrow.
My favorite phrase: "Let the weeds grow and the paint peel." This is my new mantra. What is Essig trying to get at? She's critiquing the bubble, the false economy and false consciousness that nearly every aspect of American society has tried to believe in since, as Thomas Frank tells us, the end of The Great Depression.
How many parents choose colleges for their children because they have been overcome by the shiny-ness of them, residence halls that look, as Essig describes, like condos? Does it take all of this to educate, or do America's colleges wish to send a message that, indeed, this is the standard of living for American grads so it might as well be the standard while they're in college? What ideas does this marketing infuse into students? A: a commitment that they should become workers so that they can get a job to, one, attain such a standard and, two, pay back student loans. Sounds like a trap, doesn't it?
But I love the image of peeling paint and weeds for implications beyond academe to the American economy as a whole. I'm so inspired by the image I've added a photo. Enjoy.
I loved this quote as well. The first thing that caught my attention while reading it was "let the weeds grow and paint peel." I immediately felt like if we cared about education more than dressing it up our standards would be a lot different as far as how we turn out. Another part that striked me was when you talk about paying back the loans and working to get jobs. You asked, "Sounds like a trap doesn't it?" Well to be honest it does sound like a trap. We are in school working to find a job. When we find the job half of that money going to paying back loans. So we winning to lose. Sometimes we have to lose just to win.
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