Yesterday, I was reading about the near riots on the Berkeley Campus. It had me reminiscing to my youth of the turbulent times of the early 70s. Although my editor told me to stay away from politics I wanted to make a few comments about the reality of social problems and education of today.

Winston Churchill once wrote “If you aren’t liberal as a youth, you have no heart, but if you aren’t a conservative as an adult, you have no brain. We are coming into the time where our country will reach a period of reasonably rational thought or a period of seeing the greatest country, maybe of all time, fall into the dark ages.

As I watched the students demonstrate I wanted to be there, not to join them, but to ask them why they think the tuition is going up and what role they, themselves, played in it happening. From the intensity of the march and the taking over of the building, I’m thinking it never occurred to them that they, and their fellow Californians, who voted for the present state and federal government, helped create, or completely created the tuition hike that they are marching against.

Social problem and education collide when there is no connection of education to the realities of economics. This coming year, California will have a 23 billion dollar budget deficit. How do the students think this state is going to pay for it? The UC campus is a state funded system. Do we think that at any time someone taught the students that states, like families have only so much money to live on? If a family spends more than it has it will go bankrupt, so too the state. If we keep electing officials, who think that their job is to get elected rather than serve the public and the only way to do that is to pander to special interest groups, in this case the teacher’s unions and the labor unions that have pension plans and ins. plans that only the richest Americans can afford then the students will eventually have to pay for it. Hence, we have the present clash of social problems and education.

Now, I’m not so cold hearted to not want every American to do well. I have 3 kids in college myself next year. Although, I am literally freaking out about my finances for this situation, I don’t delude myself as to the cause of the price hike. American colleges have not moved to the place they ought to be, namely a place where truth is told. Liberal arts are great, but students should also be taught that fiscal responsibility is just as important.

Social problems and education have never been more connected than the dramatic increase in tuition we are all going to face.

Good luck,

Dr. Bocknek

Dr. Robert Bocknek is the problem solving expert for marriage, parents and families at www.takebackthehome.com and www.keyboard-culture-parenting.com. He can be reached at bocknek@takebackthehome.com. He is author of the “Take Back the Home course” and the “Learning how to Learn course” which can be seen at www.takebackthehome.com.

     

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