Posted on 04/25/2018 5:43:11 AM PDT by SJackson
Who deserves free education, lower financial burdens and the right not to work at all?
On Monday, April 16, twenty students were arrested at Yale University after refusing to leave the school’s financial aid office during a rally. They were demanding that Yale remove what they regard as a financial burden for its low-income students on financial aid. The burden in question was the Student Effort requirement which requires students on significant financial aid to make a financial contribution of between $2,800 and $3,350 to their education by working on campus.
Chief among the protestors was an international student on a student visa from Pakistan, Shaheer Malik, who objected to the having to work up to 10 hours per week in the library scanning barcodes on the grounds that such work robbed him of his ability to fully enjoy the social activities that constitute the Yale experience. Other students complained that having to work was unfair because it discriminated against them based on their economic status whereas as their wealthier counterparts were spared the injustice of having to work.
The protestors prove once more that there are people in our county that fail to realize that immigration is a privilege and not a right; that their parents’ procreative choices are not the fiscal responsibility of others to bear; that our country was founded on political equality not economic equality; and that the task of assuming responsibility for one’s life as an adult supersedes any social activities or play time that might be part of the Yale experience.
I wonder by what infernal impertinence some of today’s young people would demand that their desire for a totally free education constitutes an unconditional public good for the rest of society, and that their desires and wishes to be absolved of all responsibility for their lives be regarded as an unchallenged moral imperative. The protesters rule by moral intimidation and they get away with it largely because much of the larger society has mistakenly come to feel that education is a natural right; but it is not a natural right for if it were that would mean that individuals would have to be responsible for the reproductive choices that others made and which they morally could not have undertaken as their own.
I am reminded of my own struggle as a legal immigrant in this country thirty-two years ago when I arrived here from Jamaica with $120 in my pocket. I worked for a year to save up enough money for a half a year of college, and for four years worked up to forty-five hours per week while going to school full time and surviving on four hours of sleep each night. I graduated magna cum laude and then earned a scholarship to pursued a doctorate in philosophy. Not once did I believe that the state or America owed me anything except a chance to earn a living and pay my way as I journeyed through life.
I had made a covenant with this new country I would call my permanent home. I promised that, in the name of the best within me, I would cultivate the noblest virtues in my character and use them as the only legitimate currency to purchase a life that would be worthy of an American. That there would be no obstacles that my indefatigable spirit could not overcome, and that there would be no prejudice that a philosophy of individualism, which characterized the very essence of who I was at my core, could not transcend. This covenant spoke to the stupendous achievements I vowed to accomplish by taking advantage of the plethora of opportunities that I knew would become available to me. This was a moral contract I was making with my new country. The best within me was a code of conduct that I would enact between myself and my future compatriots. It was an ethos of benevolence and goodwill that I would extend, and one that I expected to be reciprocated. The America I anticipated meeting, and the one I have come to know and love, is a country predicated on mutual exchange.
What the entitlement children of today do not realize is the sacredness of grit and commitment to decent and hard work that can be learned from life in America. Regardless of what you do, whether you scrub a toilet, practice medicine, clean someone’s bedsore, or fly a plane, dignity is something you possess inside and it is something you bring to whatever you do in your line of work. That work reaffirms your commitment to the sanctity of your life.
Your life is never cheapened by the work you do. You enhance the dignity of the work you do by imbuing it with the magnificence of your humanity, the grandeur of your soul, and the inviolability of your individuality. The work is enriched simply by your touch. That grandeur is yours. You’ve earned it.
Give up the claim to entitlement, young protesters. You’ve not earned it!
Sheesh. I worked 10 hours a week on the work/study program in the University library and an additional 16 hours on the weekend as a line cook while going to school full time. Did it cut into my social time? Heck ya. But if I didn’t work I wouldn’t have been there to socialize at all.
Ingrates.
God bless Prof. Hill.
I believe that ‘free education’ shouldn’t be a societal problem but an institutional issue. the institutions should be the ones to bear the costs and burdens. They have a lot in endowments to do this.
(Sitting back, waiting for them to squeal)
For cryin out loud.
I wanted to work a campus job, but the waiting list was years long. So, I worked a job off-campus. Six days a week.
Yeah, it put a crimp in my social activities that are a part of the college experience, or whatever. It also put a serious crimp in my study time. But, it never occurred to me to whine about it.
Kick these snowflakes out of school and let them fend for themselves in, say, construction.
Great article! Thanks for posting.
Many kids in the US aren’t being taught appreciation for the ideas that bring them opportunities here. Nor are they taught that it takes work to realize them.
When I was in college —scrubbed cooking pots which was cool because we has a view from on high of the student cafeteria so we could scope out the girls and the various shenanigans going on. Delivered campus newspapers and shelved university library books too. At various times.
Undergraduate and law school took me six years all together. I worked full time for five of the six summers, with the other being taken up by ROTC summer camp. In my last year of law school I clerked for a professor. I never resented any of that work time, enjoyed it while I was doing it, and look back on it as one of the best times of my life.
Ingratitude is at the top of the list of ugly traits.
Yep, I worked full time in summer too, while attending a couple classes of summer school. Made it out in 4 years which apparently doesn’t happen too much anymore.
I’m actually grateful for those financial lean times. It’s humbling. Living within a very tight budget was a great educational experience in itself. Plus I have Dad rights to lecturing my kids “Back when I was in school...” and I don’t have to make stuff up. I did work hard, stayed focused, and it paid off.
I would say there are still great college kids out there. It’s just the whiners have an internet platform to be heard louder now.
I worked 40 hours a week at jobs as various as counting and typing worms in various animals’ poop, grading homework papers, as a Veterinary Clinical Associate, and so on. The head of my department seemed to think working full time and putting a time limit of 3 years on my PhD was good for business. It was not. My family suffered, I was absent and on the farm counting red and white blood cells on microscope slides and teaching part time in my area called “microbiology”. I hope they have forgiven me. Sigh.
And through it all, I rejoiced that I was able to work and continue going to school. Only in the USA would this have been possible for a woman with a family and kids.
I will never dishonor this country and very probably I will always cry when I hear the Star Spangled Banner and the Pledge of Allegiance. The time I spent in the Navy was excellent, too. Taught me skills I have used all my life.
Dennis Prager has a good discussion about it in his new Rational Bible.
People rapidly forget the good others have done for them and they’re quick to express their resentments.
That’s human nature. The hardest thing to cultivate in people is gratitude and to get them to love both their fellow man and God.
Our secular times are a testament to this age-old truth.
Thank for this. Dennis’s book is sitting on my nightstand waiting for me to get to it!
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1. Background on this situation: white privilege, male privilege, and christian privilege are Alinsky blue pills leading to...
“Income Privilege” and “Property Privilege”. ANTIFA and BLM bigots are in the streets waving communist flags already.
2. Imagine a world where children tried as hard as they could to do well and honour their parents. “Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven”. I think the 5th Commandment is in the first half of the list because its very important.
The situation is not pretty. But I don’t think it ever was.
I’ve done my job and raised two successful, productive US citizens who are grateful for their opportunities. They understand why the opportunities exist, and they aim to capitalize on them. This is not an accident.
My hope is that enough parents have done that to fend off the threats to our freedom.
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