The Screwed Generation

By Alan Caruba

June is famous for weddings and graduations. Both are filled with great expectations and both are subject to great disappointments.

Today’s college graduates are thoroughly screwed. According to Matthew Segal, the president of a non-profit membership organization called Our Time, “With 85% of college graduates moving back home and an average debt of $22,900 per student, thousands are staring at a bleak economic future.” You think?

Aren’t these the eager, besotted youngsters who, at age 18, voted for Barack Hussein Obama as if he were the Second Coming? In the words of Herman Cain, a GOP presidential contender, how did that work out?

“New college graduates,” said Segal, “are entering an economy with an almost 17% unemployment rate for Americans under the age of 30.” Despite that and other horrible statistics, Segal insists “We know there is still a bright future out there…” Oh, yeah? High unemployment. Having to move back home. Graduating with a huge debt. That’s not my definition of a bright future.

I graduated college in 1959. When I got out, what awaited all able-bodied young men was the Draft. Before I could think about utilizing my precious diploma, I had to get two years in the U.S. Army behind me and to my surprise it was some of the best post-graduate education one could imagine. And it was mandatory.

My “career” didn’t take off until I joined the staff of a weekly newspaper and, since the editor left within three months or so, I became the editor! Here again, the education I received was invaluable. All small towns and cities pretty much have to deal with the same political, educational, policing, and other issues.

I “graduated” to a daily newspaper and, after a few years concluded that there was no real money to be made. In this respect, I was way ahead of my time as the Internet would decimate newspaper circulations, decimate editorial staffs, and affect the writing craft to the point that rendered it a very bad career choice.

For those graduating from high school at age seventeen or eighteen this year, it means they were born in 1990 or 91. They were ten or eleven years old on September 11, 2001; just old enough to know that something terrible had happened, killing thousands of Americans who probably thought they were not at war with militant Islam. Since then, this generation has not known a day of peace.

For most young men, though, the option to avoid service—an all-volunteer military—had been made by Congress in 1973. So, Generation X, born 1965-1980, and Generation Y, born 1981 to 1995, and the current generation were largely spared serving in the military. You tend to pay closer attention to what is happening in the real world if it means you may have to fight a war. The miracle is that we have a million men and women in uniform who somehow absorbed the values of earlier generations.

A subject of growing contention is the way the nation’s educational system has been “dumbed down” since the 1960s or the growth of “political correctness” that thwarts addressing issues involving ethnicity, ancestry, religious faith, and gender. Nor is there much discussion of the way colleges and universities have become sausage factories squeezing parents and working students for every dollar, pushing them through, and conferring degrees that, with the exception of the professions, often have dubious value.

This new generation is very “connected” in ways earlier ones could never imagine. Facebook, MySpace, and all manner of other Internet machinery have transformed how they perceive themselves and the world. It has not, however, significantly educated them in the traditional sense of the word.

They will doff their caps and gowns and go home to mom and dad. A friend of mine graduated from Georgetown University in 1982 after working his way through. He recently calculated that it cost $232,000 to graduate today. What teenager could ever take on such a burden and why should their parents be expected to shell out the kind of money that could purchase a second home?

Today’s graduate is not likely to see any return on the money he or she pays into Social Security or Medicare. The dollars they earn will have diminished in value from those of my time or my friend’s.

It can be argued that it was no picnic for earlier generations, but they at least had a Constitution that wasn’t being ignored and dismembered.

They had, despite the occasional short-lived recession, a healthy economy, a rational national debt, and presidents who, with the exception of people like Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama, didn’t see their job as plundering the public treasury for so-called “social justice” and environmental programs based on liberal pipedreams.

Welcome to the world of faltering economies from here to Greece and back again.

Welcome to outsourced jobs.

Welcome to rapacious bankers making money on housing loans they knew were bad for those in search of the American Dream.

Welcome to useless pat-downs every time you fly.

Welcome to “reality TV” and vulgar “entertainment”.

In these and so many other ways, this new generation is thoroughly screwed.

© Alan Caruba, 2011

Tags: Islamic-fanaticism, debt, education, outsourcing, unemployment

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Comment by Pat Chadwell on May 11, 2011 at 10:36pm: Do like Israel an mandatory for all including women an we would see a differant Ameica....

Comment by Pat Chadwell on May 11, 2011 at 10:35pm: I still think a short time in the service will give the young the right direction to stand an do what is right... We would not have the problems in the US if we did, After then the kids could have a idea of what they want to do the rest of their lives...

Comment by Roland C. Cartier Jr on May 11, 2011 at 10:34pm: Bring back the draft you'll see alot of illegals flee as well as the liberals Then will see real Men and Women won't we.

Comment by Steve Wagner on May 11, 2011 at 10:30pm: Many parents get sucked into the mantra of society, spending their life savings sending little Johnny to college, when Johnny is clueless as to what he wants to do with his life, let alone knowing where his interests & skills lie. We've left so much of the educating up to 'professional educators', that parents have forgotten that real education first starts at home. And, it's up to the parent to recognize and help develop the child's skills and gifts.

So many college grads find themselves working in areas they never received a degree for... We really need to rethink "higher education." We have to remember... a college is a business, and they're there to make money!!! I'm not saying don't go to college, but good grief! How about using some wisdom? In a lot of cases... a trade school is better. no condescension here. It's all about gifts and talents. Society (and most educators) insist you must go to college to get ahead, and you''re sub-human if you don't. That is a lie!

Comment by Pat Chadwell on May 11, 2011 at 10:29pm: Nice job Robert, I did do all mine because it would take 2 pages lololololololol. Thanks...

Comment by Pat Chadwell on May 11, 2011 at 9:48pm: As for myself james I went in at 17 an when I got our went in to contruction as a grease monkey an later into the warehouse an worked parts for years but my time in the Navy gave me what I need to stand on my own an it all started back in 57......

Comment by James R. Norris on May 11, 2011 at 9:43pm: I did not know that we had many young people graduating from college at the age of seventeen or eighteen. Live and learn I guess. I got a job and worked my way through the first two years, got on the wrong side of the law and cut a deal to go to basic training rather than jail. After my time with Unk, I finished on the GI bill. Hey, do it however you have to, but I didn't borrow a dime. It took me eight years to earn a four year degree, so I know I wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed. I'm tired of all this whinning and crying about how hard it is to go to school. This is still America, and if you want it you can get it by nothing but work. I'm suffering every day because many bad decisions made when I was young. It's not your fault. I'm so happy to have made it to be an old man. To you young'uns. Quit whinning and get on with it.

Comment by USARogue on May 11, 2011 at 9:35pm: Alan,

Excellent post as expected.

I just graduated my two boys from "University" and they are both in the position you described. My oldest is living with my ex and I just spoke to my youngest who, along with his girlfriend, wants to move in with me. Fortunately they all have jobs but they are not able to sustain themselves at their current incomes. They both work within a couple miles of my place so it makes sense to move in and get their careers and some savings put away before they venture out on their own.

Today with the cost of rent, food, utilities, gas and basic everyday needs the graduating class they both come from are predominantly moving back home as "Boomerang Kids". Our nation is failing not only us but also our children and their futures. They are young and ambitious, so they still have that benefit, but the usual ritual of post graduation career building has been put on hold for many of our children. Entry level jobs in their fields now require 2-3 years experience. How do you get experience if you can't find a job? The paradox is difficult to explain.

Sadly, the "Greatest Generation" and subsequently we "Baby Boomers" have to carry the burden of our failure. The failure to be vigilant of our government as we are dutifully bound by The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the humble warnings of our Founder's and Framer's. Our disconnect with our duties by pursuing the almighty American Dream, which became bastardized with Keeping Up With The Joneses, consumed us and allowed our government to be corrupted and Despotically infiltrated. This is both our legacy to our children and our tragedy bestowed upon them.

It is our responsibility now to lay the framework, again, that our predecessors created. The challenge is no longer about us. It is about our children and their progeny. If all we can do is to right our nation and put it back on the course it was intended, our accomplishment will be monumental.

Yes, we have created this mess and as our Declaration so beautifully explains;

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

It is now our solemn and humble task to correct it as was also defined for us;

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

It is our right, it is our duty.

Comment by Ralph Roshto on May 11, 2011 at 9:01pm: start here:
republicfortheunitedstates.org

Comment by Pat Chadwell on May 11, 2011 at 8:36pm: If we had the same trainning as Israel has America would not be in shape we are in now.. With the military training of 1 year all of the young people would not let what is going on now to happen. They would know how to stand on their own an do what we used to ....