Benjamin Golub’s blog

Megen and I had traditional afternoon tea yesterday and couldn’t help overhearing an infuriating conversation coming from the table next to us.  The table consisted of a mother and her daughter (the daughter was likely in her 20s) and another woman.  They were discussing trivial things like purchasing new sofas and how filling the scones were when suddenly the conversation moved to college.

The mother said that higher education was a money making scheme and that it is pointless to buy into it; the other women at the table agreed with her.  She said that jobs were hard to find even with a college education but that there were many jobs to be had that didn’t require one.  To which the daughter replied that her work was going well (she talked of plucking eyebrows; not that there is anything wrong with that).

Megen and I were completely flabbergasted.  Both of us value education above most everything else.  Education is the most worthwhile investment you can make in our opinion.  Megen was especially amazed at their conversation seeing as she is going just about as far as you can with one’s education (medical school).  We tried to think of friends of ours that went to college and we consider “normal” socially (that is they have decent people skills and can interview well) that had trouble finding a job but couldn’t come up with a single person.  Statistics show that even attending a single college level class (you don’t even need to finish) increases one’s average salary.

We suspect that the mother was simply trying to defend her own choices in life; not once did she say “I went to college and it didn’t help me” so that leads me to believe that she did not get her degree.  Yet they spoke very highly of their husbands and boyfriends who worked for Paychex (a payroll outsourcer who largely employees CS majors).

Is this just a world I’ve never been a part of and thus never experienced?  Do the typical tea going individuals not care about education?  I don’t think that it’s for everyone but to make a statement that higher education is worthless is a pretty bold move.  Maybe it’s just because I have always been in an environment that regarded education highly but I was pretty shocked.