There are tons to worry about in this present economy, but as an educator I worry about (duh) education. My bias had always been that higher education is a necessity, ostensibly to prepare for the work force, yes, but really I think higher education allows young brains time and opportunity to continue to develop. An eighteen-year old needs more time to learn as much as she can, to develop social and interpersonal skills, to figure out how to time-manage and problem-solve and other hyphenated skills. College affords that extra time to grow up. (Whether American high schools are currently structured to even prepare students for college success is a whole different topic—and one I am not in a position to write about at this point in my own growing-up-and-learning process. And this, by the way, is a really chicken way of saying I don’t want to cause unnecessary trouble for myself as a teacher. Not right now, at least.)

Realistically, however, I haven’t had a student who thought of college that way. College, to my real-world-minded students, is a path toward a career. It’s as straightforward as that to my kiddos.

But it’s not straightforward, and to compound the twisting path to employability are a number of problems.

One, as I know all too well, is the rising cost of higher education. There is, apparently, over “$1 trillion in student loans outstanding in this country,” and I suspect that many people

Education costs seem to be cramping our style.

who owe money began that debt as a college student. Contemporary students borrow a lot of money to pay for college, and college has become more expensive. If college graduates can’t pay all that money back to the government because, let’s say, unemployment rates continue to plague our country, will the default on those loans lead us to another devastating economic crisis like the mortgage crash?

That wasn’t a rhetorical question; I really am asking y’all, because it’s worrying me. The LA Times reported late last year that tuition to California colleges went up 21%. Eeks! That’s the highest tuition increase in the whole country, and no, that tuition increase is not at all in keeping with inflation. Students are almost guaranteed to incur debt (an average of $22,000) in order to get a degree and land that dream job.

Which leads me to the second problem: are colleges truly preparing students for employability? Harvard’s Pathways to Prosperity cites a study which reveals that half of college graduates are unemployed or underemployed (which means grads are not attaining full-time or long-term positions). Northeastern University found that 38% of recent college grads are holding jobs that don’t even require a college degree! I can attest to that problem, as the first full-time job I could land after college was as a bookseller at Borders. But it’s not simply colleges’ fault; the crappy economy is licking at our marrow, having eaten away our sense of financial security.

Success, which I’m simply defining as “landing a damn job” for the intent of this article, depends in part on one’s major in college. Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce recently put out a study (182 PDF pages, people!) about the economic value of college majors. I’d already known that business was a top major, but I found that geological and geophysical engineering had a 100% employment rate. Along with geological and geophysical engineering, genetics and mining had a high rate of full-time employment. Graduates in agriculture and natural resources are also faring well, with 90% full-time employment and a median income of $50,000. Mathematics and computer science majors earn a median income of $98,000, which isn’t surprising given our tech-heavy world. And here’s another non-shocker: pharmaceutical sciences majors can earn $105,000. In contrast, median earnings for those with an art degree (film, commercial or graphic design, studio, etc.) is $44,000; secondary ed teachers are at a median of $46,000; this is weird to me, but a U.S. History major can expect a median of $57,000; and social workers can expect a median of $39,000.

A cheesy googled image. I imagine her to be thinking, “This piece of paper cost me a crapload of money! And now I need to get out of this cap and gown and into my Starbucks apron before my shift starts!”

It seems that if we want college grads to land a damn job, we should tell them to forget about their passion and go for where the money is: business, engineering, pharmacology.

I was being snarky, just in case you couldn’t tell.

Third (man, I’m only on my third point?), those students who can’t afford traditional colleges, don’t have the grades and scores for traditional colleges, want to but can’t get into compacted community colleges, and/or need to attend night school because of work or family responsibilities turn to for-profit colleges, the biggest of which is University of Phoenix. I’d always been suspicious about the quality of education at for-profit schools, but I had no evidence to support my suspicion (how, for example, can one gauge “quality” in education?). I still have no evidence, but I’m also still wary about such schools. PBS’s Frontline produced a program entitled “College Inc.” which elucidated to viewers the hard-line sales tactics employed by enrollment counselors to reel in potential applicants. Some for-profit schools are not accredited, and some that are do not even provide students with actual training to prepare them for employability. It was shocking to me. Now, I’ve seen all the University of Phoenix commercials on TV with seemingly earnest testimonials from alumni. If I trusted advertisements, I’d have to admit that it seems like there are a bajillion people out there with awesome success stories after graduating from University of Phoenix. But the ads just serve to remind me that education is now a business, and that in order to market to consumers such schools surely need to be able to pay for the marketing somehow. Enter stage right tuition and fees, baby; tuition and fees. I didn’t know until I viewed the program that tuition at for-profit schools end up being more than at traditional schools. It makes sense, though, because shareholders in for-profit schools have an obvious interest in drawing in students who are not attending traditional colleges for any of the above reasons, and they draw in those students even if the students clearly are not prepared to pay for or grapple with the material in higher ed classes.

Those who are willing to incur debt for an education at flexible for-profit schools and who are able to keep with up higher ed are sometimes misled with promises of real-world training. I was alarmed to find that some for-profit vocational schools don’t even have research institutes or connections to hospitals, which is a major problem for LVN hopefuls who find, upon graduation, that hospitals won’t hire them because they’d never even stepped foot in a hospital during their “higher education” training. It’s atrocious. It’s not, by any means, a universal story among the for-profit schools, and I’m sure the same criticism can made about some skeezy traditional colleges as well. But just like it rattles my ethical radar to see pharmaceutical drugs advertised on TV, it also doesn’t sit well with me to see billboards and commercials advertising colleges. It makes me wonder how much money is spent on marketing as opposed to curriculum and faculty.

I haven’t reached a bottom line in my research yet, but I have a vested interest in higher education not only because I love learning (nerd power!) but also because I am a secondary education teacher who is passionate about leading my students to the best possible lives they can claim for themselves. College isn’t going to be the right choice for all my kiddos, but it seems that vocational schools are doing them a disservice as well. I want to be able to prepare and advise my students well, so of course I’ll continue researching studies and articles and then I’ll add another blog post in future.

It’s such a nasty habit of mine to pile on more responsibilities and stuff than my sanity can handle.  Over the years, that habit has become a considerable vice to reckon with:

• I have more clothes and shoes than I can possibly wear (and yet I still go shopping).
• I have more books than I could ever find the time to read (but I find myself at used book stores quite often).
• I have tons of papers to grade and school events to attend or supervise (yet I’m currently attempting to get certified as a rater for Educational Testing Services).
• I need to this or that and, usually, both this and that (hmph!).

So now that I realize this, I must make changes or I’ll end up ungrateful, more disorganized, and unappreciative of how awesome my life truly is.  I wonder why I need to keep busy or have [lots of] things.  I don’t particularly enjoy being exhausted.  I don’t feel fulfilled because I have twenty-three different black blouses and seventeen black pants and eight different pink lipsticks.  There’s absolutely no reason why my life needs to be complicated and crowded.  “Indeed,” says Thoreau, “the more you have of such things the poorer you are.”

Thus, simplify, Lars, simplify.

I don’t imagine turning into a total DIY queen, or (though my conscience would be lighter) committing to 100% sustainable and green living.  I can, however, commit to the following:

• Only buy necessary things (see next bullet).
• Learn to differentiate between wants and needs.
• Eat my left-overs.
• Enjoy what I already have.

One of my fav finds on Pinterest.

All I really want in life is to live well.  I don’t want to be anchored to a shitload of unimportant things.

I sometimes take troubling events for one more spin before I can let them go, and, inevitably, that “one more spin” is more like a gyre of spins funneling down ’til I can finally quit the damn cycle.  Why is that?

I want to think it’s because there’s something else–a deeper lesson, perhaps–I have to learn from the experience before I determinately let go.  But really I suspect it’s a nasty flaw in my character, one which makes me unable to shrug off hurt without inspecting every angle and depth of the wound.  It’s the same way I am with problems:  think and over-think, then think some more. Actually acting on all that thinking is about several steps down the line.

On the flip side of that flaw, I’m a better writer and teacher because of my acute ability to reflect.  What I need to do now, though, to get healthier with this whole “letting go” plan, is reflect, improve what I can, and then pack away what cannot be changed.  Isn’t that how the Serentiy prayer goes?  Hold on…Google to the rescue.

Ah, yes, there it is.  At least I’m somewhat wise enough to know the difference.  Here’s what I can’t change:

• who doesn’t love me
• my past cowardice
• hope in genuine, loving companionship with someone, some day

Here’s what I can:

• don’t hold people to unusually high expectations, especially if I can’t meet those expectations myself
• be braver from now on
• keep hoping for genuine, loving companionship with someone, some day

We’ve spun around this floor of heartache too many times, ye ghosts of my past.  Farewell and good riddance.

I was grading papers at my favorite café today and looked around to see that almost everyone there was solo.  Patrons were reading newspapers, working on homework, typing stuff on their laptops.  Another man seemed to be a teacher like me, because he also had a stack of papers to grade.  Only a few were chatting with friends or partners.

But when I went to Paesano’s in Elk Grove around 1:30, everyone there was with someone else.  I, however, was still solo.  Why do people visit cafés by themselves, but need company at restaurants?  Well, check that; I’m not sure they need company at restaurants, but I think eating in public places is more of a social act than merely responding to biological hunger.  I had brought a book with me to Paesano’s because I almost always have a book with me, but I remembered a character of mine in a long-abandoned story I was writing who, after a divorce, forces herself to sit alone at a restaurant for dinner.  She refused to bring a book with her, refused to twiddle on her cell phone, refused to bring any work papers; she just needed to train herself to sit and eat alone.  So I tried the same.  I put my book down and sat still.  After nary a minute, I found I just ended up eavesdropping, and no conversation I overheard was particularly interesting.  I opened my book again and happily read away over my bowl of pasta.

But now that I’m home, I’m still thinking about eating alone in public places.  At lunch today, I wasn’t aware of any judgmental glances from fellow diners; no one was giving me the “pity her” hairy eye ball.  For my part, I truly didn’t care that I was at a restaurant by myself, but I am aware of a stigma against dining alone in public.  It harks of a lonely heart, I think, and especially around the holidays.  But is dining alone pitiful?

The Nashville Scene food blog provides this strategy for eating alone:

“Avoid places with waiters, unless it is a place that you frequent so much already that you already know the servers and they will chat you up and make you feel less lonely. Otherwise, there is always that awkward time when the host has to doublecheck [sic] and make sure you really said “one” when he asked you how many were in your “party.” Not to mention the minute when they have to clear off the place settings for all the other empty seats. Awkwaaaard!”

Hmph.  Really, now??  The way blog poster Alexis writes it, dining alone does indeed sound pathetic.  My host at Paesano’s today did not double check if I had really said, “Can I get a table for one, please?”  He was pleasant (and cute, I might add, but that’s neither here nor there) and finding me a seat was no awkward ordeal at all.  My waitress sucked, but that certainly wasn’t due to the fact that I was dining alone.  She didn’t make a big deal about clearing off the other serving ware at my table, but then she didn’t make a big deal about me at all as she forgot about me for long periods of time before, during, and after my meal.  My point is, lunch was not “Awkwaaaard!”

Does it matter who a person is, then, and how secure she/he is about dining alone?  Does it matter where said solo diner is having a meal?  Might be both.  But regardless which or both is true, the reality is that I am a single woman and dining alone is commonplace to me.  I don’t even think twice about it.  If I’m too hungry after work to wait for take-out and then drive home to eat the take-out, then I’ll just plop down at a restaurant table and eat there.  If anyone notices my solitude, I hope it isn’t to think, “Oh, poor girl.”  Hell, if anyone notices me at all I sure hope it’s a smart, sweet single man.  A girl can dream.  While I cherish my solitude, I am also, at heart, a social gal, and I absolutely love sharing meals with friends.  But dining alone is a necessity at times, simply because I don’t have friends available or nearby (presumably not because they all went to Vegas for an awesome impromptu road trip without me).

It ain’t a big deal, really.

Unless you’re a kid in the school cafeteria.  Ohhh, now that is scary, isn’t it?  Maybe that’s where the stigma began:  in the cruel scrutiny of pre-adolescent peers. I do have a memory of panic making me sweaty one day in junior high when two of my closest friends were absent and I was walking to the cafeteria for my lunch.  I do not, however, remember how I resolved that internal conflict.  I may have eaten alone, or I may have found other people to sit with.  In either case, I wasn’t sufficiently traumatized, it seems, to never want to eat alone again.  But gosh, it’s tough being a kid and facing the yawning gape of the school cafeteria sans friends.  Any insecurity on a solo kid’s face would just invite the bite of jeers, and hell yes kids are each other’s terrible tormentors.  Yet I hope, with all my heart, that such “loner” kids learn—whether by the hush of angels or a kind, observant teacher—that solitude is no mark against their character.

And it ain’t a big deal eating alone unless you’re a high-profile celebrity, about whom nothing seems to be out-of-bounds in the public eye.  Check out this cruel post about the Harry Potter actor, Daniel Radcliffe, caught by cameras mid-chew.  He’s looking “glum,” the poster says, although to me it just looks like he bit into a peppercorn, which is never pleasant.  As if actors with any measure of success are pathetic if they dine alone.  Having a film under your acting belt should, say these bloggers, guarantee that you can summon friends at any given moment.  Never mind that poor Radcliffe may have just wanted solitude.

Now, as tends to be the case with me—and especially when I ruminate on solitude—I turn to Emerson, for whom solitude was not misery but rather a conscious demonstration of self-reliance.  I cannot, by any means, see my future, not even to just within an inch before me.  For all I know, I may be dining alone for my entire life.  I may be alone for my entire life.  But I have a right to be here.  Being alone, in private or public, allows me to exert a declaration of my existence:  I am here; see me or not, but I am here.  I forget that sometimes when I am surrounded by too many people, especially the super-talkative ones who don’t really have anything to say.  Do you find that true, as well—that sometimes having too many others around has the opposite effect of a sense of solid belonging?  The loud and obnoxious make us forget we are a part of anything meaningful at all, and that, I think, is a shame and wholly untrue.  It matters that we are here.

So, it turns out, dining alone may just remind others that in the mass of bodies bustling around in public in these next several weeks of holiday frenzy, we are unique, discrete, individual beings to wonder at.