The con that is American higher education

Here's a preview of my next column, which will appear in The Morning Sun newspaper:

Parents waved goodbye to their sons and daughters over the past week as they made the ritualistic journey here to Mount Pleasant and other college towns for the commencement of yet another school year. 

Once arriving on campus, collegians quickly lose touch with reality. It's not hard when these communities are more often than not too neat and too perfect — the epitome of the utopia that all too many Ivory Tower inhabitants dream of each night. 

Yet the real world seldom resembles a campus community. Of course, this is no surprise to most parents let alone the self-supporting students, who attained the age of majority both in definition and in practice. 

However, don't tell this to the vast majority of professors, guidance counselors and administrators. These folks, whose job and livelihood depends on the justification of their very existence, too often than not perpetuate the con otherwise known as higher education. 

These folks are directly responsible for the illusion that college is a right and not a privilege, as well as the notion that everyone should have a bachelor's degree, which amounts to little more than a high-school diploma of yore. (Fore the sake of fairness, a good share of parents are also responsible, though you can't blame them for adhering to societal pressures.) 

Whether it's locally at Central Michigan University or down the road in East Lansing at Michigan State University, too many are marshaled along because society has been convinced they must attend college.

The full column will be posted once the newspaper publishes.

— Dennis Lennox