Nineveh Moment 17: Going Away to College?

I was just listening to an interview with a college admissions counselor who said the coronavirus crisis is playing havoc with high school seniors who would be in the final stages of college trips and picking a college for next year. Now, not only are the campus trips scotched, but with growing economic uncertainty, a good number of students are rethinking going away to a four year college. Good! See, our current paradigm is for kids to grow up in a community developing strong rapport with parents, siblings, neighbors, church members, teachers, coaches… Then, at age 18, a majority head off to distant four year colleges — detaching, more and more, from the people they were close to. After college, the fragmentation continues with the graduates then heading off to the highest paying jobs — wherever they might be. In other words, solid community is often traded in for money. God’s plan? This crisis is giving us the opportunity to realign. Hopefully, more and more of these high school graduates will go to the local community college and live at home, or close by, continuing to work on local community building. In addition, our administration would propose Two-Year-Fast-Track-Associate Degrees that included education streams specific to a person’s field of study, without electives, and such, that are pushed in four-year liberal arts colleges. (Those electives — Who really needs analytical philosophy anyway? — are not so much about a student becoming more “well-rounded,” as they are about a college “making more money.”) So with this realignment, there’s naturally much less student debt and local community building has continued to grow. In addition, in valuing the latter more, there’s much more of a possibility the college graduate will then look to stay around the community to work. Note: The Bible said the early Christians were inspired to “live in community.” So it wouldn’t take a Biblical scholar (versed in analytical philosophy no less), but rather just an “average Jonah” (versed in spiritual common sense), to figure God would be for things that enhanced community. (The Amish have figured this out, and they only go to school through 8th grade.) For more on this, as well as other outside-the-lines “education” platform points, see…

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