Mental Health: What Happens When Big 10 Grads Think "College is Bullsh*t"?

Pictures speak louder than words. And emotions move people more than rationality.  And the harsh words that Mike Newman (aka Ekim Namwen) speaks in his video "college is bullsh*t" express the anger and depression of a 30-something year old Ohio State graduate who gets it.  While Newman's work is thoughtful and original, the emotions are common in many once-aspiring graduates from state flagship universities who never quite get ahead.

If you can deal with the critical tone and the emotions expressed in this video, it's well worth looking at it from start to finish. If not, start looking at it from 28:30. Newmans's intent has been to finish a serious decade-long documentary on higher education, but two recent suicides at OSU led him to speak out against the madness of higher education: its outrageous costs, its greedy anti-labor administration, and its uncaring bureaucracy.

The College Meltdown has been going on for more than a decade, and things are getting worse. Books critical of higher education could fill a book case or two. That's admirable. And of course, there are some great exceptions amid the meltdown, such as free community college, and potential free market innovations such as TuitionFit, but the general direction of US higher education is downward.

The current reality is that millions of Americans are traumatized and silently suffering. Many Americans regret borrowing so much money to get the college degree they obtained, if they got a degree at all. The average family holds about $47,000 in student loan debt. And aside from a few student debt groups (like the Debt Collective and I Am Ai) and a few adjunct groups, there is very little resistance. Calls for change are met by other calls (by the rich and powerful) to abandon the dreams of higher education.

We can't blame the problems of higher ed just on higher education. US inequality has been increasing for a half century, and it displays itself across society, from "savage inequalities" in the college pipeline to how end of life is medicalized and made so expensive, at the expense of state and federal budgets.

But there has to be some recognition of the damage that has been done by business minded college administrators and college boards, by the madness of crushing student loan debt and underemployment, and the system that turns almost everything good into sh*t.

Related link: "Crapademia"​ and the Mis-overeducation of America
Related link: Education is a Racket (2016)