I love these hands

Making Pie 5
Originally uploaded by sjaustin

And woman they're attached to.

(...and the pie she makes.)

On cargo shorts

Cargo shorts: they're a staple of summer. From frat boys to farmers, everyone loves the casual utilitarian style only cargo shorts can provide. So you'd think that by now, someone would have perfected their design. But as far as I have been able to tell, no one ever has. I'm not a clothing designer, but I am highly opinionated, and I do have legs—so I feel qualified to write about this topic. Here is how some designer could create the perfect cargo short; I offer this free of charge as a service to society.

Cargo Pockets

The heart and soul of the cargo short are its cargo pockets, obviously. The ideal pocket should be roomy but not bulky, secure but easily accessible. Most often it is the issue of accessibility that clothiers muck up. Repeat after me: buttons are a bad idea. If it takes two hands to open, you've failed. My first choice would be velcro, but snaps are also acceptable. Either way, you'll want two anchor points (rather than one in the center of the pocket flap) for added security.

Belt Loops

It's casual summer attire, so you probably aren't going to want a belt, but you still need to have belt loops. Why? Because it's also utility attire, so you ought to be able to clip in your keys. And since you're going to sew some belt loops on them, you might as well make the loops wide enough to fit a belt through. You know, on the off chance someone wants to go d-bag casual and slap a belt on. Bonus points here for a drawstring on the inside of the shorts.

Fit

Crotch: Tight-crotched low-rise jeans are one thing; I guess they're okay, if you are the type of guy who wants to go troll for the type of girl who likes guys who dress like women. But again: cargo shorts are casual wear—they should fit loosely and comfortably.

Length: Here's a simple rule: make the legs long enough so I don't look like a geometry teacher in line for Space Mountain. The hem of the shorts ought to flirt with the top of the knees, okay?

Front Pockets

Loose and deep. Not only should you be able to fit your hands in comfortably, but you ought to be able to hop in the car without fear of dropping all your change down into driver's seat no-man's-land.

Rear Pockets

These are a bonus feature. You're probably sticking your wallet in one of the cargo pockets, but sometimes you'll want a place to keep a napkin while you eat ice cream, or a place to stow your keys so they don't jangle so much (remember, they're on your belt loop). So repeat after me again: buttons are a bad idea. They're an even worse idea on the back than on the sides, because they're even more impossible to access. Matter of fact, let's get rid of the flaps altogether on the back pockets. Okay? Good.

Well, there you have it, clothing designers: the perfect cargo shorts. I'm not sure why this should be so hard, but now that I've spelled it out for you, can you get to work on it for me?

"The Case for Working With Your Hands" - NYTimes.com

Great article from the NY Times about categories of work and their perceived and actual value. Money quote: "A gifted young person who chooses to become a mechanic rather than to accumulate academic credentials is viewed as eccentric, if not self-destructive. There is a pervasive anxiety among parents that there is only one track to success for their children. It runs through a series of gates controlled by prestigious institutions."

Back from the library again

OK, another stack of books and I don't know where to start. Bookish friends, any advice? (Other than the iced coffee, which seems obvious.)

Some more college talk: great links

If you just can't get enough of this college talk, here are some more fun bits to keep you thinking about it.

This American Life: "Hey Mister Deejay"

I really wanted to include a reference to this episode of PRI's "This American Life" in my original article, but there just was not any room for more content. I've uploaded the pertinent portion of the show, in which contributor Adam Davidson tries to convince his younger brother D.J. (now a ditch digger) that dropping out of college was the worst decision he ever made. Davidson enlists the help of a Georgetown economics professor, whose advice might surprise you. It's worth a listen just to hear D.J.'s spectacular Massachusetts accent. Click here to access the MP3 from my Box.net account.

TED: Celebrating "Dirty Jobs"

Mike Rowe, the host of Discovery's show Dirty Work, gave a fantastic presentation at the TED conference in 2008. It hits home right at the end, when he begins to discuss the quality of some of the people he has met while hosting the show. Warning: there is some fairly graphic talk of sheep castration in the video. Not for the faint of heart. (Thanks to commenter J. on the original post for this link.)

David Wiley: "Openness and the Disaggregated Future of Higher Education"

This is a SlideShare link to David Wiley's slides from his presentation at the 2008 E-Learn Conference. The first slide warns, "Your institution will be irrelevant by 2020." Spend a minute or two scanning the slides; they contain some very interesting information.

Jeff Jarvis: "Hacking education: Google U "

This article by Jeff Jarvis is the same one I linked to last week to whet your appetite for the topic. It's a nice blend of futurist realism (read: pessimism toward the future of the university as we know it) and futurist solutions (read: optimism about the continued role of teachers, certification, etc.)

And of course, for reference's sake, my original article can be found here, and my follow-up article is here. If you're still hanging with me here, I'd love to get your thoughts on any or all of these links. Leave them in the comments!

Down off the ledge

The response to my previous post, "Why My Son (Probably) Won't Go To College," was extensive and very thoughtful. Thanks to everyone who shared thoughts, here, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

I want to share some follow-up thoughts, responding to some of the comments and clarifying certain points I may have left a little muddy in the original.

First, have no fear: we have no plans to prevent Abel from attending college; in fact, we are planning to save money toward his education in case he decides that's what he wants to do. We will prevent him from taking on as much debt as we did, though. I probably should have made this part clearer.

Along the same lines, I will stress that college is absolutely the best step after high school for some people. If a recent graduate knows for sure she wants to work in a field that requires specific educational preparation, AND if a combination of scholarships, parental contribution, and projected income during and after college make her sure she can afford to go, then it makes a world of sense. I think this situation is rather rare, however. It's rare that a high school senior can make this decision, and it's rare that she has access to that kind of money. It's utter insanity to send a confused 18-year old into a college environment at great expense just because "you have to go to college."

That being said, a middle ground approach suggested by Larsitron in his comment on the post, makes good sense. I don't agree with everything he said, but I have no arguments with his concluding paragraph: "I would encourage students to avail themselves of their local community colleges to get an idea of what they'd like to do and get some gen. ed. requirements out of the way. Then, once they have a better focus on career goals, enter the state university system and take advantage of the resources therein." This approach alleviates both of my concerns: it delays the decision about career, and it costs much less, especially in states like Arizona where the public college system is so affordable.

One important consideration is an individual's own character and personality: several people suggested that college is what you make of it, that you can learn a great deal if you just buckle down and work hard, that if you're actively pursuing the experience, it will be wonderful. I don't disagree, but I think this proves my point in a way. The people who fit this description are the ones who are going to make the most of their lives anyway. If you have that much drive, college is probably even less imperative as a preparatory step into the job market, real life, social fulfillment, and so on. You're also less likely to want to work in an environment where a bachelor's degree is generically required, not to mention more able to find creative ways to demonstrate you have the skills a college degree supposedly indicates.

And probably the most important clarification: My working assumption is that most people do not find personal or spiritual satisfaction strictly from their jobs. Since I regard these goals as infinitely more important than financial "success," I wanted to write the article in a way that forced people to examine their purpose, not just in going to college, but in life. And here's where I retract my disclaimer from the original post. This is pastoral advice: life is about a lot more than what kind of money you make. If you're going to college to get a career so you can earn money and be happy, you won't be happy, even if you do make the money. If your life goals include making a difference in the world by working in a field that requires one or more post-secondary degrees, then go for it. Just be smart about how you get there. Have a conservative plan for how to pay for it, and stick to the plan.

Thanks again for all the comments! Feel free to keep the discussion going.

Why My Son (Probably) Won’t Go To College

Preface

A few months back, I posted to Twitter that by the time my followers' children reached college age, college would be irrelevant. The exact wording appears to be lost to time, but you can imagine the response I got. Let's just say I was in the minority. I promised to elaborate in a forum that allowed me to exceed 140 characters, and here we are.

Unfortunately, it has taken me almost 2,000 words to articulate the personal side of this issue: that my wife and I are disinclined to raise our son with the expectation that he must go to college to succeed in life. I realize this is not the article I promised—it does not prove that college will be irrelevant in 20 years—but I hope it is still interesting, provocative, and that perhaps it lays a decent foundation for the bigger argument. I look forward to your comments, because although I have strong opinions on the matter, discussion about it fascinates me. If it seems to be a topic that fascinates you as well, I will write more about it.

Here's the gist of what I'll be saying, in FAQ form:

• Do I anticipate sending my son to a traditional four-year college when he graduates from high school? No.


• Do I think college is a bad idea for everyone? No.


• Do I think college is ever worth going into significant debt? No.


• Do I think there are lots of better ways to spend the amount of money that college costs and accomplish the goals of a college education—even if you could pay cash? Yes.

A Hard Realization

It dawned on me one evening as I sat at my desk writing a check to a student loan creditor: college had not been worth all the debt it had put me in. Sure, I’d had a great time, met some really wonderful people (including my wife, who is the most really wonderful person I’ve ever met) and I’d learned a thing or two. But if I had it to do all over again, I wouldn’t have signed those promissory notes.

For the next half hour, I sat, daydreaming about all the things I could do if I didn’t have this monthly payment monkey on my back. One of the things I caught myself imagining was contributing to a 529 plan for our son’s college education, so he wouldn’t have this much debt. I was quickly struck by the delicious irony of that dream. And then it really hit me: what if college was a bad investment, period? What if Abel would be better off not going at all?

The Expectation

It’s marked indelibly on our brains: “You can’t succeed if you don’t have a college degree. You’ll never get a good job unless you go to college. Without that degree, you’ll never get where you want to go.” We all know this, have known it, for as long as we can remember. It’s about as controversial as tying your shoelaces in a bow.

There’s just one problem: it simply isn’t true.

Naturally, not everyone is Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, both of whom made fortunes after dropping out of college. But that doesn’t mean an average person can’t be successful without going to college. In fact, I think you’re at least as likely, maybe more likely to succeed in life if you don’t go to college immediately after high school.

I recently conducted an informal poll on Twitter, asking “Why does one go to college?”



The answers came fast and hard for the next half hour, and they broke down into a handful of main categories:

• To train for a career and/or boost a resume


• To learn how to learn


• To expand your horizons: socially, geographically, culturally


• To have easy access to sex or to find a potential spouse, depending on the college the respondent attended


• (Interestingly enough) Several people mentioned that college was simply the expectation for a high school graduate. I couldn’t agree more that this is true, or less that it is a valid reason.

My thesis is simple: college is far too expensive to be worthwhile for most people as a career catalyst, and you can obtain every other benefit better and more cheaply without going to college.

My wife and I believe this firmly enough that we have decided not to encourage college for our son, who is four years old at the time of this writing. (That loud popping sound was all four of his grandparents blowing a coronary artery. Don’t worry, Mom and Dad; we’re still going to save some money for him, just in case.)

Counting the Cost

Here is the estimated cost of college in 14 years, computed at Sallie Mae’s “College Answer” planning website. I will use the cost of four years at a private college as a basis for these arguments. If you want to propose a state school as an alternative, that's fine; just realize that the problems with the model still exist, and in many cases, the benefits are lost or severely reduced.

• Four years at an average private college: $243,110


• Four years at an average public college: $62,864


• Two yeas at an average community college: $11,695

These numbers do not include room and board or books. As anyone who has attended college knows, those extra costs sting and cut deeper every semester. Add these necessities to the total, and you’re easily over a quarter million dollars, and that’s before the cost of typical college-kid tomfoolery.

This also assumes that you pay cash, which is less likely with each passing year. Far too often, the cost of college is financed, fattened up with interest, and paid over ten years—or worse still, in a trend that preys on the ignorant, consolidated by private lenders and stretched out over fifteen or twenty years so as to “lower your total monthly payment.” The leaden burden of ill-advised debt is what has recently dragged our economy deep into the sea of recession. Please don’t believe the lie that a piece of paper in a frame is worth more than financial freedom.

But even assuming you can earn the degree without taking on debt, the cost is so astronomical that any student or parent ought to think long and hard about the wisdom of placing that big a bet based on the life goals of a 17-year old. Have you met many 17-year olds lately? How many of them would you willingly hand $250,000 cash and say “Here: use this to prepare yourself for the job you’ll want when you’re 45!”? Not many. But that’s what you’re condoning if you assume every four-year old kid has to grow up to go to college.

All That Cash, and For What?

This financial ruination might be easier to stomach if it actually resulted in job preparedness or made your resume stand out, but it doesn’t, at least not at a rate of success that could possibly justify the risk. Think back to college: how many of your friends graduated with a degree in the program they entered college to pursue? How many of your friends are actually working in their field? And the really nasty, hairy question: of those who are, how many are putting their expensive knowledge—the stuff they learned in college, not the stuff they taught themselves or learned on the job—to use every day?

Think of it another way: how many job postings nowadays generically require “a four-year degree”? A lot of them. You may consider this a terrific argument for obtaining a four-year degree. But the more sobering interpretation of this reality is that bachelor’s degrees have been generalized and commoditized into irrelevance. A four-year degree is the high school diploma of the new century, only it costs a small fortune to obtain—and worse, if you really want to distinguish yourself, you need a graduate degree anyway. (By the way, this is not a sustainable model. We can’t afford to live in a world where a master’s degree is the distinguishing feature of a resume. I predict companies will soon start getting serious about otherwise skilled, qualified applicants who don’t have a college degree.)

If Not College, Then What?

I’d like to suggest that one more reason just about every high school graduate goes off to college is lack of imagination: they simply cannot fathom doing anything else. Well, I can. As a matter of fact, this is where it gets fun. Dream with me.

If you were to enroll in a middle of the road private college this year, four years’ tuition would cost you $94,282. Let’s be absurdly generous and imagine you could live, eat, buy books, and entertain yourself for four years on $5,718, and we’ll round it up to $100,000. Here are three better ways to spend that money and still get the benefits college offers. Keep in mind, we’re trying to set ourselves up for financial success while having a life-changing experience. And don’t forget that you could always go to college later in life.

• Buy a 3-family house in a decent part of town. Put $75,000 down, live in the smallest apartment, and put $400 in the bank each month. With the remaining $25,000, buy a reliable used car and a year’s worth of groceries and gas. The ladies will love you. If you are a lady, the guys will fight over you.


• Invest $75,000 in mutual funds. Go get a two-year degree at a cost of $5,000, living at home with your parents until you graduate. When you do, put the remaining $20,000 down on a small home and start your career as a nurse, dental hygienist, or administrative assistant. Keep investing. Retire at 45.


• Spend two years traveling the world. Visit every inhabited continent briefly in the first year. Then, in the second year, return to the two cities you liked best. Live and work for six months each in each. If you decide to come back home afterward, you’ll be poor financially but incredibly rich in life experience. And trust me, the companies that matter will clamor to hire you rather than your friends who are just coming off their sophomore year bender. Remember, college diplomas are a dime a dozen. (Well, they are from the employer’s point of view. From the applicant’s perspective, this is a laughably inaccurate cliché.) How many resumes include six months learning Spanish while working as a barista in Argentina?

Case Studies to Make the Dean Blush

Still think college makes too much sense to pass up? Here are a few stories that prove the lie. All are true stories of people I know, people whose phone numbers I could give you if you wanted to check my research:

• We recently had three doors replaced on our house. We hired a local carpenter to do the work for us; he was professional, prompt, and the work was superb. His price was fair, but let me tell you: his hourly wage is apparently a hell of a lot higher than mine. And I went to graduate school as long as most lawyers do. When he finished his work each day, he cleaned up and went home to his wife and kids and promptly forgot about my silly doors. He never went to college.


• My sister is a nurse. She went to a community college for two years, earned an associate’s degree, and could now work as many hours as she wants in any city in America. Unfortunately for her bank account, she only figured out she wanted to be a nurse after she figured out she didn’t want to be a social worker, which only happened after she had borrowed a good $30,000 to get a degree. If only there had been some other system by which she might have figured that out.


• One of the groomsmen in my wedding graduated a year after me in college. His degree was in religion and philosophy, but his first serious job was doing web design for Ford. Yes, that Ford. He is self-taught. His portfolio, which he developed without the help of any department head or advisor, spoke for itself.

All these numbers and stories lead me to my conclusion, a very personal decision that I nonetheless predict more and more parents will make as the educational models in our country change. The assumption that college is the only (or best) natural step to take after high school is erroneous and financially treacherous. That assumption stops with us and with our son. We will save money to contribute to his post-secondary education, but by no means will we insist that education take place in an institution of higher learning. The value just isn’t what it used to be.




* * * * *

DISCLAIMER: I usually avoid disclaimers, but this time I probably need one. The opinions expressed in this article are my own and are do not represent Artisan Church, where I serve as a pastor. They are not intended as pastoral counsel; nor should they be applied without discretion. Each situation is unique. As the nerds say, your mileage may vary.

Should we?

Here is a nice foreword to my forthcoming article, "Why My Son Won't Go To College," which I anticipate publishing on Monday.

"Should we be forcing young people to go through 18, 16, or even 12 years of school—trying to get them all to think the same way—before they make things?"

—Jeff Jarvis, "Hacking Education: Google U"