A Simple Request

Could we please, as a society that allegedly values tolerance and individual freedom, embrace the idea that a human's inherent value is not tied to the possession of a college degree? That a person can be 'smart' and choose not to go into big debt for a piece of paper that attests to one's mastery of irrelevant (to that person) subjects?

Call me a nouveaux hippie but I still have crazy ideas about how fame and fortune aren't necessarily relevant to happiness or satisfaction or a life well lived. I resent the implication that I am leading my children to doom by agreeing that a degreeless future need not be one of misery, social isolation or grinding poverty. I even have the audacity to believe that people with low intellectual functioning shouldn't be encouraged to want 'the college experience'. Not everybody can work at NASA. Not everybody wants to. The guy with the degree from StateU who is now frantically peddling plastic crap made in China to cover his $45,000 of student loan payments plus the $2500 credit card balance he ran up buying 'professional' clothes needed to land his $30K a year job is, according to the current mindset, a more valuable member of society than the guy who shows up to fix my plumbing when HM is away? Ummm...No. Flush toilets and hot showers trump My Little Pony or a Snuggie or a Ginsu Knife set any day. Every day.

I could rant on this for a while. Days maybe. But here it is: My brilliant daughter who I pushed and nagged through 3 years of college before she was 18 doesn't want to do any more of that and I think that its her choice and that she's more capable of making the best decision for her. Colleges aren't going to be vanishing from the earth and if she changes her mind, she can always go back. For the time being, she has chosen to spend these days of her life in a place that brings her joy, strengthens her faith, and encourages her to develop traits like patience, thoughtfulness, compassion, and diligence. I consider that a superior education and support it wholeheartedly.

Update about comments: I pulled them all down. It was starting to look too much like a public family squabble (not yours Anna, but I figured I should just take them all down, mine included)