They stand, they teach, we listen and we pay.Some of the greatest minds of our generation and past generations sat in classrooms and listened to professors with deep ideologies and profound thoughts as we are doing today.

They took in the teachings of men who they saw as greater and deeper thinkers than themselves and attached those principles to their minds and began a career in something more beneficial to their pockets than teaching.

There is one point that is neglected in the whole scheme of professors and their past jobs after they break free from schoolhouses and universities. They had jobs.

I recently sat down with a fellow who brought up a good point about the generation prior to ours.

We sit on the question of whether to continue to fund the educational system or not.

Along with this, we hope that we will have a job waiting for us once this maze of multiple-choice word vomit is over and done.

Meanwhile, we sit patiently as we endure exams with short essay questions.

This regurgitation of facts and figures merely teaches us that that we can run around with wordplay better than a trained politician if you give us enough time and paper.

Putting these fears and notions aside, the generation prior to ours that worked so hard actually had opportunities.

We have to scratch and claw and fight against one another’s résumé just to have a chance to get a foot into opportunity’s front door. We have to hope that it won’t be slammed in our faces.

We watch as the back end of every joke revolves around how long we will have to work because of who our grandparents’ generation raised as leaders.

These men and women have a short-sided way about not accomplishing anything while our parents sit back and will not be half as affected by the decisions being made today, or lack of decisions being made, as we will 20 and 30 years down the road.

The cost of tuition is on a constant rise in schools all across the country.

This leads to one question. Why are we paying more than our professors did if we are less likely to encounter opportunities to find a decent job after their speeches and seminars are done?

Should we not be paying less since their opinions are benefiting us less per dollar?

The teachings and exams that allow us to earn bachelor’s degrees are certainly not benefiting us as much as they did students before us.

As it is often stated, it becomes more and more obvious that our college degrees are worth no more than the paper they are printed on.

However, our professors still get paid to teach and research while we pay the institution for the opportunity to one day hold a piece of paper in our hand that distinguishes us from the bottom half of the population.

We are simply caught in a revolving door.

Soon we will leave this place and a fresh group of like-minded individuals ready and willing to pay for a stepping stone will follow behind us.

The bachelor’s degree is almost as acceptable as a high school diploma in today’s job market. Yet another reason why the marginal benefit of our professors’ words declines while universities’ tuition costs continue to go up.

It does not take a cold-hearted economist to see that based on the value of the education we are currently receiving we should be paying less money for our tuition.

I guess that same economist would also mention that the fact remains that the state is funding us less and we will continue to pay more regardless of how many students come to this university.

I guess this is the change we really wanted.

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