020050520 21:58 • 
This afternoon I watched my friend Lee Meisner graduate from the University of California at Berkeley, walking the stage at the Greek Theatre to obtain his BA in Political Science. He’s on to bigger aims now: a degree in law then taking on criminals. Next year it will be my partner Ania pirouetting across the stage, then she, too, will be chasing a degree in the legal arena.
These are two of the smartest people I know. They’re people who define goals then think outside the borders and create new methods to accomplish those goals. They have the ability to adapt and create frameworks for their endeavors. They’re thinkers and definers, movers and shakers.
I’m not saying higher education is the only factor involved in the making of a mover and a shaker, but for every college educated person I know there are dozens more in my life who do not have the same capabilities for contribution to our society. Many of them don’t even operate on that level, as if by contributing to society you take away from yourself.
How did America’s education sink to it’s current pitiful level? In California, the world’s fifth largest economy, only 71% of students graduate, with rates below 60% for minorities. College tuition, already priced out of range for the majority, continues to rise at a rate much higher than inflation. Anti-intellectualism has found a leader and renewed vigor in attacking science and technology and it’s not shameful but a position of strength to say “I don’t read the news.”
The answer is simple: lack of funding. An educated populace would not let this state of affairs come to pass. For fiscal 2006 the US budget is 2.57 trillion dollars. 419.3 billion of that goes to defense, and a mere 56 billion to education. For the “world’s only superpower” this ratio is the most foolish choice imaginable. It’s short term spending rather than investing for the future, and leads to the condition we’re already seeing: stratification of society into those who can afford quality education and those who cannot. The smart and wealthy versus the ignorant and poor. All you need to do is look to history to see where that social condition leads. Of course, you may not have learned any history if you went to high school in the United States.
Capitalist society is predicated upon endless expansion and maximizing profit from effort. Wouldn’t it make more sense to maximize on the supply side, in this case brainpower and available sources of ideas to capitalize on, than to short future earnings and innovation by starving the pool? If America is truly committed to a free and democratic society, doesn’t it make sense to fund and develop the best infrastructure possible for living as a free and democratic populace? Wouldn’t well-educated people function more efficiently as a democracy? Wouldn’t highly capable, intelligent people make better capitalists?
The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University says it well in its report on dropout rates in California:
“The state loses billions of dollars in revenue each year because high school dropouts are ill prepared to join the work force, leading to higher unemployment and underemployment rates. Professor Russell Rumberger of U.C. Santa Barbara calculated that just one year of high school dropouts costs the state $14 billion in lost wages.”
The future belongs to those of us who can think.
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