So, You've come.....Good for you

This is the first entry in this project. I am thrilled.....

Why College? Most people I've been asking say:

1. More Money
2. Better education
3. Building intellectual capital for advanced opportunities
a. In jobs
b. In social networks
c. In relationships with partners
4. For their future
a. kids
b. all of the above
5. That's just what you do
6. My Parents wouldn't give me money otherwise
7. Educate myself to foster Social Justice in my neighborhoods


And so forth...Truth be told, for most of us it is a combination of all of these elements that have guided us towards higher education....

Nonetheless, I have seen a trend, though one I can not, as of yet, empirically qualify, that I find alarming ( I know, I feel commatose too). That last one: #7. I've asked a good 20-30 people in personal interviews "Why College", and not one of them gave me this last reason as their motus operandi. The growing disconnect in today's college applicants seeing education as a means of enhancing others upwards mobility instead of their own is most certainly, as Robert Putnam would argue, a grave loss of social capital of the bridging and bonding kind.

It is one this note that I then say: well man, that's what I want to be here for. Why college? I want to open the door for Social Justice to come into this big room full of elephants and take them all where they belong: outside of big rooms getting in the way of people having fun helping people.