This is a great stuttering country with a few screws loose and a stupid attitude towards the most important feature of any enlightened civilization. There is nothing more important to us than the education of our children. It's education that pushes each generation beyond the last generation; it's education that maximizes the talents of children to make them productive and contributing adults; it's education that turns the sweet dreams of ten-year-old kids into marvelous adult realities.
So what do we do with this social force we call "education"?
This morning on the front page of the New York Times you will find a story about Reed College, a first-class little college in Oregon that is turning away one hundred outstanding-but-needy high school students from its freshman class to substitute one hundred students who can pay their way and thereby alleviate the college's dismal financial situation.
No money, no education. That's the American way, right? But then turn to the editorial page of the New York Times, same paper, same day, and you find a letter entitled "Luring the best students", the letter about visa processing delays for foreign students. The letter, from Debra Stewart, President of the Council of Graduate Students, says, "The world's intellectual talent plays an important role in strengthening the United States economy... To enhance American competitiveness we must continue to attract and retain the top brain power from around the globe..."
Neither Reed College nor Debra Stewart (nor even the New York Times) are at fault. They are not responsible for this comic fandango, this paradoxical conjunction that highlights the general stupidity of the American people. It's that general stupidity that caused Wall Street to crash its own financial system, and it's that same general stupidity that causes us to wail about the need for talented young foreigners to come here to study while at the same time (and out of the other side of our mouths) we are telling talented young Americans that if they don't have the money for it they will probably not be able to get a quality higher education.
It seems to me that the big players in this country, the moguls and tycoons and senators with yachts and suntans, the fat cats with bikini bunnies on their laps, need to find a way to ensure that every kid who has the talent for it gets a higher education. We need a strong and working system of full federal student aid so that colleges with small endowments do not need to turn away outstanding students who lack the money to pay their own way.
The consequence, if we don't do it, is that sooner or later the carnival tent falls down, the bunnies fall off the laps of the fat cats, and in a thousand years history will say, "Well, they conquered a continent and then fell on their faces outside the saloon."
Frankly, I'm not too optimistic that we will change. American general stupidity continues to support the crazy idea that both health care and education are fine if you have the money for it--despite the reality that this crazy idea is an excellent way to sabotage America's future.
I feel like an old dog barking in the wilderness. Down there in the valley there are ten-year-olds with dreams to be wrecked by this great stuttering country with stupid attitudes.