One of the things I notice as a ham radio operator is that there are an awful lot of educated people overseas.

Virtually all of the Arabs I have spoken with, for example, speak pretty damned good unaccented English. When I look up their callsigns I see evidence that they are educated men.

The other day I spoke with a Chinese girl that sounded pretty young. I ventured a guess that she was in her early teens. She spoke clean, unbroken unaccented fluent English. It wasn't anything like the English you hear in Chinese restaurants stateside.

American English for most Asians is a gold-plated sonofabitch to learn, yet here was this youngster that seemed to have mastered it.

She had a lot of confidence on the air and I spent time listening until the bulk of the pileup subsided to the point where I could work her with my little barefoot rig.

While waiting I looked up her callsign and found she was a part of a middle school radio club. Why was I not surprised? A lot of other countries encourage activities like this and start teaching other languages at an early age.

An Egyptian immigrant I was talking to the other day told me that in Egypt they have started teaching kids Engilsh and other languages at an early age because it's easier for little kids to learn than waiting until the kids are older.

Then I think for a second that the United States is something like 57th in education.

Of course, we used to be top dog, but as usual the other countries saw what we did and started doing it. We  have been slacking off and it is going to come around and boot us in the ass in the not so distant future.

I think a part of this is because the NEA is too busy worrying about fat paychecks, early retirement benefits, better medical coverage and avoiding responsibility and accountability for their membership. Looking out for the kids seems to have been forgotten somewhere along the line.

Another thing I think has something to do with this is the rising cost of education. Part of which I attribute to the college loan programs.

Colleges started raising their costs. People started griping and the government interceded by offering college loans. It didn't take colleges a long time to realize that with the loan programs they could raise their tuitions even higher.

It seems that every time the government steps in to help people they just make things worse for everyone. One of the most common subjects I hear from college aged kids and their parents is how to get an education without having to stay in hock for a couple of decades afterwards.

Of course, another thing I hear is people complaining that a master's degree in something like puppetry only nets a job at Starbucks but that is a different gripe altogether. It is not the fault of the system but of the dumbass that wasted a small fortune on a useless degree.

Some dumbass gets a master's in pupperty yet here we import an awful lot of engineers from overseas and he wants sympathy. I think not. At least from me.

Back in the day there were a number of things a youngster could do to get through college. A friend of mine several years ago told me a pretty funny story about living with seven other guys for almost three of his four years in college. Six of the eight were using GI bill benefits.

I met another guy that lived in a Ford Econoline van for a couple of school years.

These guys bought used textbooks and generally scraped by.

One enterprising and mechanically talented guy I met worked summers as a logger and during the course of the school year would assemble and sell Volkswagen bugs out of salvaged parts. They even came with a list of 'ingredients' so the new owner knew what tune up parts to purchase to maintain his new set of used wheels.

"This bug is a '62 body with a '58 transaxle, a '65 engine and sheet metal between '56 and '70" His personal VW had no sheet metal parts that matched in color.

I suppose he made a few bucks maintaining them too.

I'll admit these were a little on the extreme side but the point is none of these guys graduated with college debt.

Back then you could get through college without any debt if you were motivated. 

These days a college degree often costs you a decade or two of being in hock after you graduate.

Part of the costs of today's education is likely greed on the part of the schools. When the loan program started up they knew they could raise prices even higher. I'd bet that if you eliminated the student loan program that enrollment would drop and that would be followed by a drop in tuition costs.

Another part of the reason we see a national drop in education in this country is that there isn't the motivation to get ahead that there used to be. No education generally meant you did something hard and unappealing for a living and for short money. Now it more often than not means you get money from the government to sit around and do nothing.

These days our social welfare programs enable someone to get by on the rest of the taxpayers. That does little to motivate people. Eliminate a lot of these programs and you are likely to see a resurgence in education and the trades.

You would also see an appreciation for education return.


To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY