Purpose of higher education seems forgotten

Due to result of my own selfish desire to make Rice events a reflection of my own experience, I began Owl Weekend by attempting to build a connection with prospective students. To my shame, I was not one of those Rice students who earned a snazzy red shirt. Those were reserved only for students valiant enough to come into direct voluntary contact with prospies. Instead, I chose to connect at my own convenience.

Building a relationship with someone on the cusp of higher education is a delicate thing. Remembering just how oblivious and awkward I was at the end of my own high school experience, I tried to infuse an essential understanding of Rice as an accessible academic institution and a unique undergraduate experience into my awkwardness with this year’s owls.

But while engaged in one of these exchanges with prospective students, I came to a disturbing realization. I asked this particular prospective student where else he was considering attending. He scoffed and told me “Well Cornell, Duke and Columbia are my top choices,” in a tone that would drive even the most levelheaded, self-respecting Rice student to deck him for his arrogance. And yet, I found myself grinning. I knew that I had once spoken so arrogantly of Rice and I appreciated his foolish sentiment. He then said that he knew Rice was comparable to his top choices but that its lack of name recognition was too important to ignore. I was still unsurprised, but at that point, I was angry.

I feel like a rarity at an institution full of students for whom college was an expectation — not a privilege. For me college was a choice, and refusing it would not have been my death sentence in my parents’ eyes. Most Rice students enter — and many leave — with the idea that going to a world-renowned academic institution is just another step on the way to bourgeois upper middle class bliss. This is a wholly inappropriate way for undergraduates to pursue their chosen academic fields. The tradition of the university is invested in academics, not job training or networking. It is a wonder that Rice professors — some of the leading scholars in their fields — tolerate undergraduates who spend their classes going through the motions. These students trivialize the passion and the purpose of Rice professors.

This is not solely a problem at Rice, but rather a debate that encompasses all American institutions of higher education. Americans invest in the struggle to reach the upper-middle class or maintain their upper-middle class status because it is viewed as a milestone of a happy life. As more people take on this effort, college has become a must. Thousands of students now enter college out of need for a good job, rather than any desire for academic enlightenment. Thanks to scholarship and government funding alike, it is quickly becoming the majority view that college is right for all students so that they can get better jobs with more pay.

My problem with this phenomenon is not that people should not work to improve their lives. Rather, I find the myth that a college education is the only way to happiness and success in life to be absurd. I could point to plenty of overused examples of this in Europe and elsewhere, but instead I ask you to consider career choices of everyday Americans who live comfortably and happily without a degree: small business owners, firemen, policemen, real estate agents and military officials, to name a few. Attending the nation’s most prestigious universities is surely a legitimate opportunity to pursue a high-powered career — but it should be in addition, not at the expense, of true academic pursuit. We as a society call it “pursuing higher education,” not “pursuing higher opportunity,” for a reason.

I recognize that one does often facilitate the other, but perspective is important. I hope Rice students who come to understand this issue will have a change in attitude, or at least a new respect for academia. So when new students matriculate next fall, we should make sure to teach them that is not about moving big fish from small ponds to bigger ponds, but instead moving from academic domination to a school of exploration.

Bailey Rodriguez is a Lovett College sophomore.

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