Who’s the Knucklehead?

For centuries college was not about money. I’m going to suggest today that it still isn’t.

Years ago, the only people who could afford to go to college were precisely the same people who didn’t need to go to college. Not to get jobs anyway. If you dad owned lots of land then, in the fullness of time, you would own lots of land. There wasn’t much to do during the day other than signing the inheritance papers, call on your neighbors on their estates, avoid getting the plague. Studying literature was a thing. But “wake up! I know it’s two in the morning, but we have to call our philosopher!” didn’t happen then. Or now. I enjoy philosophy as much as the next curmudgeon, but a quick perusal of LinkedIn suggests few pecuniary opportunities for logicians.

Men went to college to study esoteric topics with no practical value. Similarly, Zeus and Hera have few adherents lately. And I’m pretty sure that Circe didn’t actually turn Odysseus’s men into pigs. But the stories! There’s a reason the stories have survived over two millennia. The stories are great. That’s why my dad read me mythological tales when I was a kid; that why I read mythological tales to my kids; that’s why my kids will read mythological tales to my grandchildren.

Reading about the Trojan War teaches us to beware of Greeks (or anybody, for that matter) bearing gifts; considering Oedipus suggests that fate is inescapable; the was doesn’t start because Paris stole Helen from her husband Menelaus but because Paris was a rude guest. (Running of with your host’s spouse is apparently considered worse than using the wrong salad fork;) Penelope sleeplessly unraveling the shroud every night so she wouldn’t have to marry one of her dirtbag suitors.

But as great as the stories are—Action! Heroism! Sacrifice! Outsmarting unattractive admirers!—they’re just stories. “Why did you leave your last position?” is a job interview question. “What did you think of Penelope outsmarting all those low-rent paramours?” is not.

Which brings me—finally, it could be argued—to a recent conversation with Enrique, a welder, who owns his own business, and earns—wait for it--$150 an hour or—assuming a 40-hour work week—something over $300,000 a year.

Enrique mentioned that he has little formal education, that he considers himself—his word—a knucklehead.

I asked Enrique what how much he thought teachers make. My wife is a teacher as was my mom and my wife’s mom, and many of our friends, so I felt confident that his guess—“maybe $250 or $300 an hour”—was off by a factor of six.

The purpose of this essay is not to make fun of Enrique. I was honored—tickled—that he had so much respect for the pedagogical profession to think that teachers are compensated better than welders.

Nor is the purpose of this essay to suggest that their aren’t benefits to attending college. College is awesome. College affords more opportunities to toss Frisbees than any other venue. In college you’ll likely meet the folks who will stand up and give speeches for you at your wedding. And in college you get all those stories. Not just mythology, but Jane Austen and Shakespeare and Zora Neale Hurston and Henry Fielding. And that’s just a couple of literature courses. In college you can learn about anthropology, art history, astronomy, architecture, agriculture all the way to zoology. Not to mention refining your skills. If you are one of those lucky enough to pay attention, you can learn how to pose, solve, explain, and write up problems. College is great.

But you might want to rethink, “I have to go to college to get a good job.” Because if you train to be a welder, you can also pocket four years of tuition money, a significant number of samoleans in these tough economic times.

Or as I asked Enrique as we discussed the six to one ratio of his salary to that of a high school teacher, ”Who’s the knucklehead now?”