Education is A Privilege and a Choice

If you have college age children, you may understand the frustration many of us are going through concerning the high cost of education. Do you remember it being this hard when we were young?

I was discussing the difficulty of getting a good education in America with my friend from Germany and said in exasperation,"In America education is privilege and privilege is education!"

She wisely corrected my statement. "Education is privilege, but privilege is not always education."

"It's no longer possible to even become president unless you were born to a life of privilege!" I whined.

"When was the last time you had a president that didn't come from a privileged background?" She asked.

"Abraham Lincoln!" I said. "The Golden Boy." It may have been a slight exaggeration.

And then I remembered how he educated himself, because he wanted to, and not because it was easy. I have often told my daughters, if they are educated in this day and age, it will be because they wanted it badly enough.  Education is no longer a byproduct of being American. And perhaps it never should have been.

But then, neither should there be education centers that are attainable to the underprivileged, or immigrant, and unattainable to the natural born, working class citizen.

My rant is over. Off to self-educate.

The old fashioned way. By reading.