And for those like me, who were well-off and went to college on our parents' dime, fair enough. For those literally betting their future on their education in a financial transaction for which they take personal responsibility... not so much.
Which still doesn't quite hit the note I really wanted to hit. The apparent "trade-off" between personal responsibility and dependence on others doesn't exist. The real trade-off, in my opinion, is between independence and interdependence. You can live in an ultra-interdependent social-democratic economy where you depend on others both to operate both private businesses and public services that supply your need, but you still have personal responsibility. What interdependence lets us do, as any Econ 101 class explains, is specialize ourselves into our preferred niches rather than having to waste half our time farming when we really want to be computer programming.
But, in my opinion, it's downright arrogant to simply forget the interdependence. We might depend only on other people's self-interest, but that's still interdependence, and our lives would be much worse without it.
For those literally betting their future on their education in a financial transaction for which they take personal responsibility... not so much.
Most students have no way to reasonably measure the risk they are taking or or commitment they are being asked to make. A college student funding food and shelter from a financial aid package is not yet truly assuming personal responsibility for those things. Not in the way most adults do. That's the distinction I'm making. That's what people are saying when they say that college is not the real world.
For students who really do make the investment with awareness and appreciation of the risks and financial commitments involved, my statement obviously does not apply. That's a fairly small minority of students, though.
Which still doesn't quite hit the note I really wanted to hit. The apparent "trade-off" between personal responsibility and dependence on others doesn't exist. The real trade-off, in my opinion, is between independence and interdependence. You can live in an ultra-interdependent social-democratic economy where you depend on others both to operate both private businesses and public services that supply your need, but you still have personal responsibility. What interdependence lets us do, as any Econ 101 class explains, is specialize ourselves into our preferred niches rather than having to waste half our time farming when we really want to be computer programming.
But, in my opinion, it's downright arrogant to simply forget the interdependence. We might depend only on other people's self-interest, but that's still interdependence, and our lives would be much worse without it.