First of all, this being my first post for today, I wanted to welcome all of you who have come from Mark Shea’s blog, and thank him for providing a link. I hope you all enjoy my blog, and that my posts have proved interesting to you.
Anyway, I wanted to discuss an observation I have made, and see what my new-found readership thinks of it. I have noticed that often, the ideas of prestige and merit have become completely disconnected in our society. Of course, the most obvious area this has occurred is the area of education. I know people who are completely unconcerned with the quality of their child’s education: to them, the purpose of four years at a University is a degree stating what University it is from. To such people, the ease of obtaining employment and the potential starting pay of their child is more important than whether their child receives the intellectual and cultural benefits once associated with the idea of a University. Of course, they think, prestige is the primary factor. Why, if it were not, would more prestigious schools cost so much more?
I do not have all that strong of an opinion on the practical matters involved here. I do not know what it is like to have gone somewhere besides where I went. I am graduating with two degrees from the at least regionally prestigious Santa Clara University, and it is not particularly easy to find a satisfactory job. I don’t know if someone from San Jose State with my same degrees would have a harder time of it, or if someone from Stanford with the same degrees would have an easier time.
However, I do have a strong opinion about the attitude that drives such differences. The idea that “you’re paying for the piece of paper” is seriously destructive to the student and to the University. Society becomes a game of obtaining better and better “pieces of paper” at the expense of your time and money, to the point that one may not seriously think about other things for a long time. If a University exists to promote truth and wisdom, than the student is paying for something far greater than paper. If a University exists to sell paper at an exceedingly high price, than a degree from that University would not seem to be worth the time, effort, and money that went into the education.
