Seriously. . .when is the system of higher education in America just going to die already?  If it has to stick around, can it at least get another revamp or a major overhaul?  No, really.  Why on earth does this method of extortion even still work on us?  It use to work to keep classes of people separate from each other.  Now it’s a business that bleeds us dry of our hard earned dollars.  Granted that’s no different from any other business that exists in America.  They want your money.  That’s why they’re a business.  But, at least, everyone else is willing to treat us like customers.    The companies waiting with baited breath to hire the best and brightest of us college grads (we hope) will no doubt spend some amount of time pounding the need for excellent customer service and 100% customer satisfaction into our brains.  Even a crummy minimum wage job will try to teach their employees that.  Some businesses even go so far as to give us really awesome sounding names like “client”.  Ooo, doesn’t that sound fancy?  No, but I’m serious.  Every American knows the saying “The customer is always right”.  It is a recognition that without customers business wouldn’t exist.  It’s their way of giving us special treatment for using the power of our all mighty dollars in their favor.  The more you spend the better the treatment.

So here’s my question as a college student. . .where’s my special treatment?  I’m not saying warm milk with cookies and a foot rub, but. . .could you at least recognize your job is that of a service provider?  When’s the last time your professor made you feel like a customer?  When’s the last time this university acted like they appreciate the fact that you “frequent their business establishment”?

So why can college get away with being the worst example of good customer service in America?  College has a loophole that not all businesses have because, in most cases, the role of the “customer” is split up into two parties.  One party (parents, scholarship groups, grant providers, or loan lenders) pays for the service, and a second party (the college student) receives that service.  Now if colleges had any pride as a business, that fact wouldn’t affect their level of customer service at all.  Unfortunately, it does affect it, and it’s probably because of who a majority of the members of the second party are.

I mean, how many college students are the ones actually responsible for the payment of their tuition?  Not loans but actually taking money from their own bank accounts and spending it in some way on their own education?  How many of us are members of both the first and second party?  A lot of us, I’m sure, but probably not the majority.  With the normal age of a college student being someone fresh out of high school, how many of us 17 or 18 year olds have experience spending that kind of money?  The biggest purchase you could hope for is perhaps a car.  But the experience you gain from cringing at the sight of your bank account being drained by car payments, insurance payments, mortgage payments, rent, cable bill, BGE bill, cell phone bill, 50 dollars at the pump for a tank of regular, unexpected medical bills. . .and that’s just the single life.  Wait till you meet those “mouths to feed”.  The point is most of us probably won’t understand the power we hold as “the second party” until AFTER we graduate.  We may not be the originators of the flow of cash, but, darn it, someone is paying these universities to teach us.  That’s reason alone for them to start acting like a real business.

REAL business caters to the customers not the other way around.  The thing I hate most about being a college student is that they seem to think they’re doing you a favor. . .really now?  I just dropped a couple hundred dollars per credit plus extra fees, and you think you’re doing me a favor?  No, you’re doing your job!   The job I just paid the university you work for to have done.  Get off your high horse and just be thankful you have a way to feed your families.

The other thing I don’t like is how college can get away with making you take extra classes that have nothing to do with your specific area of study with the excuse that “you’ll be better prepared because you’re well rounded”.  Yeah, if Mcdonalds made us buy a whole meal every time we wanted a Big Mac, America would be even more "well rounded" than we already are.  And how did that “well rounded” nonsense work out for all the people with degrees that just lost their jobs and are searching for work?  The degree I get from this school isn’t a guarantee of employment somewhere.  It’s just a “o, gosh, I hope I didn’t just waste X amount of years and even more XXXX worth of money getting this piece of paper to still be out of a job”.  Being a “well rounded” employee is my choice not the university's.  Forcing a student to take classes outside their direct area of study is simply a discreet way of grabbing us by our ankles and shaking till all the change falls out.  NOTHING MORE!  Either earn that money by doing more to make sure we find jobs after graduation or leave us alone so we can at least graduate with some money left over or less debt.

The truth of the matter is we, the current generation of American college graduates, are about to get totally screwed.  In today’s America, education is far less valuable.  It’s not restricted anymore like in the past.  Anyone can be smart now.  Worse we can be smart for free.  If you don’t know something, google it!  Look for a “how to” video on youtube.  You want old school, go to the library!  I actually had a Japanese history professor show me the main textbook for her class that I immediately recognized as a book I had previously borrowed from the library years ago.   I saved 50 bucks that semester.  We don’t need college to be smart.  We don’t need college to be qualified for these jobs.  They don't even really teach us (unless you're lucky to have chosen the right kind of major).  We do all the work.  They just take the credit.  The only reason we need them is because these companies won’t hire us without a piece of paper that says we are smart enough to do this job.   But college isn’t an impossible dream anymore.  Anyone can go to college in America.  Even people from outside America go to college in America.  Everyone is going to have that piece of paper so what then?  A different piece of paper that says you’re really smart?  Ok, so that works now, but what about 20 years down the line?  How many pieces of papers do we need?!  When is it going to end?  When will I stop needing universities just to have a decent job?  There’s only one kind of paper I want, and I’m not feeling too confident about obtaining it.  I feel like our generation is the victim of some huge conspiracy that’s been going on for decades and is about to come full circle.  I know America is known for undervaluing its teaching professions, but  putting us at your mercy?  That's kind of a mean way to get us back.

So universities can snub us as clients because we need them just to survive?  I don’t think so.  There are two kinds of people business needs to work.  That’s customers and employees.  Imagine if no one showed up to work on Black Friday.  BLACK FRIDAY, PEOPLE!  Employers need employees to do the jobs they can’t do because they are only one person.  They need us just as much as we need them.  We college students have an advantage.  We just need to find a way to make it work for us.  There’s a bedtime story I remember from when I was little.  “Three Billy Goats Gruff” was it?  Well, college is starting to feel like that troll.  I’m thinking it’s time we made it decide.  Does it want us to rewrite the ending so it’s a nice troll that helps us across the bridge, or should we leave it the way it is where Mr. Troll ends up floating downstream. . . .never to be heard from again?