Hey Mister Obama.. you wanna socialize somethin? Try education!

With all the news of celebrity deaths, high finance fraud, politicians cheating on their wives and mind-numbing government spending packages it was nigh impossible to decide what would constitute my next blog entry. But in the end, what won out is something that has always been near and dear to my heart. Education.. This administration has shown nothing in its first half year if not a strong desire to take over .. everything. Banking industry, car industry, energy industry, television networks, you name it, the Obama administration has all but annexed it into the public sector. Health care is just around the corner if past performance is any indication. But where we really should be trying to ensure that every American has an opportunity to achieve is education. Education is the key to maximizing one's opportunity. Without knowledge of what is possible, it is nearly impossible to achieve anything.

I find it puzzling that in all our zeal to emulate Europe or other places in so many areas, we do not hear much noise about emulating their model for education. At least not higher education. In a time when the annual cost of a college education at most public universities skyrockets towards $50,000 a year, it seems inconceivable that this issue is being virtually ignored. We constantly lament that our youth and later our workers are falling behind other parts of the world in productivity, innovation and other key measureless. Our "systems" are constantly derided as antiquated and is largely "failing our children." Yes I know that primary and secondary education in this country has taken a significant dive over the past 25 years but that in my opinion is more an artifact of the dumbing down process we have undergone as well as the mad rush toward making every child "feel good about themselves." But that's another blog for another day. This is about higher education. As millions of parents, myself included, wrestle with how to pay for the soon to be $200,000 educations for their little ones, one wonders how much of the refinance/cash out craze which all but crippled the mortgage industry could be attributed to parents trying to pay for their kids' education. You have to be making a WHOLE LOTTA MONEY to have the kind of money saved up to cover your child's education given those numbers. I strongly suspect the number of parents in position to pay for that kind of education wouldn't break 6 digits. God forbid you have more than ONE child heading off to college at the same time.

So how to solve this problem? Well as with any complex problem, there is no simple solution. But I strongly believe that our government is missing the boat on this issue. So much of our crime is committed by the uneducated, so many of our prison inmates are the uneducated, so much of our welfare is absorbed by the uneducated, you would think it would be obvious that in addition to helping our workers become more competitive globally, educating the populace would grow the tax base with more high earners as well as ease the burden on said tax payers. It's a win win for all concerned. Well except one group. Politicians, and here is where my cynicism kicks in. A part of me believes that politicians are as familiar as I am with the statistics surrounding quality of life, career, family stability and all that for college grads versus those who do not attend college. However they do not pursue this crusade with the same vigor as they do others for the simple reason that an educated electorate is the last thing politicians want to see. The ability to manipulate the masses is a key component in the current political machinery. Educated people are a little more difficult, though not impossible, to manipulate. Educated people tend to think we know everything, even if we don't. We think we understand everything, even if we don't and we want to be informed about everything. We accept almost nothing at face value and want to dig deeper into everything. This is completely contrary to what politicians seem to want from their constituents. The evidence of this is everywhere you look in government. The promised transparency that permeated the Obama campaign evaporated like the summer morning dew in the Florida sun as they have rolled out one massive spending bill after another. And we the people, so preoccupied with the deaths of celebrities, or jokes about Sarah Palin or the infidelity of various politicians to pay attention to any of it. There are a few voices screaming in the wilderness about what's going on, but they are largely ignored and often attacked for opposing the current power structure. But even that is a digression. The real point here is that a college or trade school education should be made available at little or no cost to any kid who wants it and who meets a minimum qualification. The benefits to our society are well documented and immeasurable. Raising the bar and facilitating our youth to leap over it rather than lowering the bar and creating a generation of idiots seems a much better approach to me. I know I too am a voice screaming in the wilderness.. but if enough of us scream, it's going to get hard to ignore us.

So I repeat. Loudly.. Mr. Obama.. you wanna give something away? Make it education.. and watch America soar.