To the Editor:

    For those fortunate enough to have grown up in the Golden Age of Education when “camping out” for several years at a university was economically viable and a person could enjoy a long access to its portals of thought and learning while delaying one’s entry into “the real world”, the economics of today’s higher education is frankly mind-boggling.  And the societal changes are enormous.

    While a college degree is still regarded as being socially preferable, public monetary support for education has fallen precipitously and the subsequent personal debt incurred in acquiring that sheepskin has, along with the rise of a ravenous service economy and the death of the Middle Class, has greatly reduced both its accessibility and its cost/benefit ratio.  If one is not pursuing a specialized (and generally narrow) degree with the prospects of a high income, the overall monetary value of higher education is clearly on the decline.

    Further, with the ubiquitous distractions of pop culture and the commercial idiocy that dominates television and the instantaneous access to “information” offered by the Internet and so-called “Smart” Phones, it seems possible that the pursuit of knowledge, reasoning, and a well-rounded education (and their proponents) all seem headed to the dust bins of history.

RP