There is a funk in the air: students are worried that Governor Rick Snyder’s planned budget cuts will harm them— that they will lead to an increase in tuition causing a university education to be unaffordable and making higher paying jobs seemingly unobtainable. As I walk through the halls of my university I hear dissent among the masses. While the media will paint these “cuts” as the government strangling the weak in order to equalize the “tax breaks” for big business I say that while these cuts will help industry grow in Michigan, something that Governor Granholm could not achieve through 8 years of oppressive Keynesian economic practice. They will also help the college students of Michigan.
One of the biggest self-propagated myths of modern society is that a college education will open up doors. While there are certain vocations that do require a degree (I wouldn’t want just anybody operating on me, for example), it is not true that the country with the most college graduates will be the most successful. The American Government has been lead to believe that it is its job to lower the cost of education so as many people can have degrees as possible, even if it means bankrupting the economy. To see why this type of subsidization is harmful towards the job market, one must view college graduates as a commodity just as paper is a commodity.
A business needs employees just like it needs paper or transportation or any other good to produce whatever it produces. Now imagine that the government decides that because businesses use paper to create their products, more paper will then lead to more products being created hence a growth in the economy and better lives for its inhabitants. So in order to artificially stimulate the economy it taxes its citizens in order to create subsidies for the paper industry. The people may not be happier about the new tax, but hey, it’s creating more jobs so they shouldn’t be complaining. Switch out paper for college graduates now. The state or federal government has decided that a surplus of college graduates will lead to more jobs therefore it should tax businesses and citizens in order to create subsidies in order to lower the cost of education. This seems like a nice plan except for one flaw. It doesn’t work. Let’s go back to paper.
When there is a surplus of paper, according to the laws of supply and demand, the worth of paper goes down. Likewise, when there are more college graduates their individual worth to a company also goes down. The Government funds that go to Universities, the ones that make tuition go down, are the same way. When college becomes more affordable it thereby becomes of lower worth. Contrary to popular belief more college degrees do not create more jobs. Innovation, something that cannot be taught, creates jobs. Anyone who asks the 20-something barista at Starbucks what he or she majored in knows that.
I’m going to say something that you probably won’t believe, but I want you to try— if only for a second. College degrees are hurting people. Just imagine if everyone wasn’t so pressured to go to college, if it was socially acceptable to take 10 thousand dollars and try to start their own business or invest in a larger company. What if being saddled down by a 45 thousand dollar student loan upon graduation wasn’t the norm. Wouldn’t that be better?
What this would do is create personal accountability. No longer can people blame the economy for not getting a job even though they have a degree in English or General Studies or Philosophy or whatever else they decided upon, instead people with good ideas will make money and those with bad ideas won’t. I know that the idea of people failing on their own behalf is hard to stomach for our “I can do no wrong” culture, but, sadly, it is a fact of life. It’s also a staple of a healthy economy. You’d be hard-pressed to find one that runs bad ideas and stifled ambition.
So really, these budget cuts are helping us, not only because they allow for lower taxes on businesses (you know, the guys who create the jobs), but also because it is going to re-establish how much education is necessary to get a good paying job, even to be your own boss. Budget cuts are going to make it so a post-graduate degree isn’t necessary just to get your foot in the door, budget cuts are going to get rid of the piles of debt that so many students can’t pay off, and budget cuts are going to be what saves Michigan’s economy, one dollar at a time; one student at a time.
