Ron HartAs the most anxious group (called "Gen Z") of recent grads enters the hottest job market in recent history, here's some advice. Buckle up, buttercups; the real world is nothing like that for which those left-wing, unionized teachers prepared you. It's a jungle out there; only the fittest survive.
College is expensive, and for many is no longer a value proposition. I suggest that half as many kids need to be going to four-year colleges as actually are. Some pay private college costs to get a liberal arts degree in English, a language most of them already speak. Read Chaucer on your own time. Get a degree in something at which you can make a living.
It can cost $50,000 a year and, in some cases, that is just for alcohol. College is just for getting you out of your parents' house until you mature more, and so they can brag that you are at so-and-so university. College has become reverse kidnapping; universities send parents a ransom note demanding $50,000 per year in tuition. If parents do not pay, they will send the child back.
Upon entering the real world, you will be blindsided by reality. You will never know what hit you. It's like marrying a Kardashian.
Students are victims of a giant fraud: the government-run education system that has molded them for 12 gullible years. Public schools are government-run; teachers are government-hired; and government determines standards, pay, curricula and graduation requirements. The same government that ran up $23 trillion in debt was the one that taught you math.
Government seeks to produce compliant citizens it can someday rule without much pushback. Smart, independent thinkers are not wanted. Blowing smoke up your graduation gown serves government well. But to succeed you have to be realistic, hard-working, communicate well, and know spreadsheets and budgets.
Grade inflation and coddling of college kids create a false sense of confidence. That is why half of American workers are unhappy and disappointed when they have to work hard at something. They inevitably view themselves as "victims" (aka Democrats). Intuition tempts us to call this "compassion," which is really feel-good lies told to kids that take the onus off them and put the blame on others. Their parents often don't have the guts to let their kids face consequences, which explains the USC Varsity Blue celebrity college cheating scandal.
Kids are getting pie-in-the-sky advice and, judging by obesity rates, they are also eating the pie.
A Pew poll showed that 26% of college grads plan to move back in with their parents. Upon hearing the news, parents of millennials said they were so proud of their kids for just completing the poll and planned to do something special for them.
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A quarter of parents have taken on debt to support their adult offspring. "Mayor Pete" is the young Democrat presidential hopeful looking to politically cash in on lazy millennials. He presumably plans to canvass and sign up these kids to vote, going parental basement to parental basement to meet them.
At age 19, members of the Greatest Generation were saving Europe from the Nazis and asking nothing in return. They came home, had kids, started businesses and grew this great economy. Now kids stay on their parents' health insurance until age 26, do not marry or have as many kids. Kids are voting for socialist Bernie Sanders in droves, scared to death they may have to pay for something someday.
Kids come out of school questioning America and angry at past generations. Liberal teachers hate the Fourth of July or anything patriotic. They fear one Memorial Day parade might undo 170 days of public school education.
The last thing I'd tell our graduates: Don't trust government. The supposed "weapons of mass destruction" the intelligence agencies told us existed goaded us into the trillion-dollar continuing ed class called the Iraq War. The most recent use of the Deep State's unchecked powers was to spy on and falsely accuse a sitting president of being a Russian stooge. Now former CIA Director Brennan and former FBI Director Comey are scurrying like rats to cover their own you-know-whats. They say they did everything on the Russian FISA court surveillance warrants "by the book." I hope you read that book: 1984.
Contact Ron Hart, a syndicated op-ed satirist and author, at Ron@RonaldHart.com or @ronaldhart on Twitter.