It used to be a purple crayon was all you needed to create your dreams according to Crocket Johnson and his beloved character Harold. Of course, that was in 1955, when college tuition was around $800 a year. Since the early 80s, college tuition has increased 439% based on an article in the July-August 2012 issue of Utne Reader.
If that doesn't make your skin crawl then consider that percentage as an increase in temperature in just about any weather. Hopefully, at least you can sense what that would do to a purple crayon. With unemployment rates continuing at around 8.2%, college grads are ending up under a mound of debt covered by molten wax dreams with a government seal of approval.
In the 1992 book, America What Went Wrong, authors D. Barlett & J. Steele talk about how President Reagan touted how many "good jobs" his administration had created in a letter to Congress in January 1989. In that letter Reagan said, "Nearly nineteen million nonagricultural jobs have been created during this period.... The jobs created are good ones. Over 90 percent of the new jobs are full-time, and over 85 percent of these full-time jobs are in occupations in which average annual salaries exceed $20,000."
The debt binge of corporations in that era aside, many college grads got to use their purple crayon, some even got the big box of 72 to play with. However, Barlett and Steele noted that even back then the buying power of workers fell short of their ancestors. What's worse is the illusion of prosperity began to create great expectations, while inviting risks and gambles no one would ultimately be able to afford. We began to view the world through a kaleidoscope of delusions that we passed on to our youth without a fail safe button.
The pressure has been building for all kids to do more and be more by society as well as their parents. College-bound kids must meet exceedingly high standards to prove they are worthy to pay that outrageous sum to get a degree they may never be able to draw from. The fall out is frightening. According to a 2007 CDC and National Center for Health Statistic, in 2004 suicide was the third leading cause of death among youths and young adults aged 10--24 years in the United States. Is our trust fund of faith in a brighter future empty?
We can argue the costs and rights of education, like healthcare, we can point fingers at financial errors that got us into this mess, but there is a greater urgency (especially for parents) to truly understand what our children are facing. Perhaps, it our duty as the carriers of this diseased state of affairs to create a new picture for them. One that is neither drawn from purple fantasies nor altered by digitally enhanced pixels, yet is also neither bleak nor full of black holes; but is one that is hand delivered with great care in an intricately weaved basket of coping skills.
