Disappearing Colleges

My lovely wife received her Medical Laboratory Degree at Vermont College. She became licensed and went on to have a long career in the field. Now the college is gone. Things change. Life moves on. The place served its purpose. No need to get teared up about it.

My college went though a different sort of transition. At the age of 37 I enrolled at Lydon State College, also in Vermont. They no longer go by that name. They merged with another college and are now known as Northern Vermont University. Pretty bland name, in my opinion. They really missed a great opportunity. Lyndon State merged with Johnson. They could have called the new college Lyndon Johnson.

Colleges have a lot of scams, everything from expensive text books to expensive parking passes. Heck, college in general is pretty much an expensive scam. Then, as if they haven’t ripped you off enough, the alumni association wants you to donate a pile of money. I guess college really was the best time in some people’s lives and the college really wants to tap into that good feeling.

For me college was a good experience, but not “send them a pile of money good.” The association stopped bugging me when I told them I had a degree from their college so lacked any marketable skills and lived in poverty. Actually, I learned how to write creative letters like that in college so it was all to the good.

College is an expensive scam. Thanks to the high cost, poor people are disadvantaged. Either they can’t get an education or they are burdened with so much debt their wealth building opportunities are curtailed.

Where they get you is that a degree is the price admission in so many fields. My lovely wife would not have been able to get into her field without the degree. At one time it was possible for many different fields to learn on the job, sometimes with additional training. Those jobs are rare these days.

At some point these colleges are going to price themselves out of existence. Not going to college is not the end of the world. I had a pretty good life in my years before going into college. For me, it was a good experience, but only because my bills were paid by Vocational Rehabilitation. I left college without any debt so was able to pursue things I loved rather than having to focus on making enough money to pay off loans.

-Sixbears