Conservatives don’t like investments to be made with their money.

Especially if anyone other than themselves is going to benefit from those investments. They would prefer to be the only beneficiaries of their investments. Of course, the ideal investment for a conservative is one in which not only they are the sole beneficiary, but the investment is made with other peoples’ money.

Education is the perfect example. They are all in favor of generous investments in the educational system, but only in institutions that only they or their children can afford to attend. Vouchers and charter schools come to mind first, but the pattern persists to the highest levels of academia.

Public school education took off in this country when the rising 19th century industrial sector realized it needed fairly literate and educated workers to man the satanic mills of the industrial revolution and the commercial infrastructure needed to support it. But the robber barons of the Gilded Age did not open up company schools for their workers’ children, they used tax dollars instead, or let the unions operate the apprenticeship programs. Much the same happened at higher levels of education; the State College system was developed to meet the managerial employment needs of industry and business, not as an effort to improve the quality of life or economic well being of the common man.

Much the same is happening today, when a revolution in education is taking place to meet corporate manpower requirements. All over the country, junior college and university curricula are being changed to meet these so-called “STEM” needs, NOT to provide a higher level of education for the average citizen. As one newly-appointed Florida “educator” put it recently, “The purpose of the University is not to teach students how to think, but to teach them what they need to know.” In Florida, the State Board of Regents, originally composed of professional educators and academics, was replaced by Republican governors and legislators with “business and community leaders”. And of course, what they think students need to know is determined primarily by the current needs of industry and commerce.

No one begrudges the need of the private sector to train their workers. But if they want corporate trade schools, then they should fund them themselves, not drop the load on the taxpayer and then make further profits by getting into the business of financing the shortfall with interest from student loans. Education in the US is rapidly morphing into a machine whose final product is the lowering of workers’ salaries as much as possible by ensuing that the number of trained workers far exceeds the positions available to them. I am not insinuating that businessmen are sinister villains eager to exploit the community and the worker for their own private benefit. Hell, if I was in their place I would do it too! What I am saying is that these are the economic forces that drive the flow of energy and information, money, in this society. And if you don’t recognize this, or get lost in ideological or political trivia, the system will roll right over you, and leave your kids in hock to it for the rest of their lives.

When I started working as a programmer in the late 1970s, industry was desperate for them. People with little or no academic preparation in data processing could command enormous salaries on very modest credentials, I got my foot in the door on the basis on ONE (1) Fortran course I had taken in college almost a decade earlier! Overnight, my salary as a highly skilled industrial worker doubled (I was a stereo photogrammetrist, a job that required two years of intense apprenticeship before I could work without supervision). Many of my colleagues at my new job as a scientific programmer had non-technical degrees like French or Pharmacy), but had picked up programming in the business world. Folks with university training in data sciences were scarce, anybody who could code could rake in the big bucks. And if you had a degree in any related technical or commercial field and had learned programming as part of your training (like me) it was instant job security.

By the time I got out of the biz and left Silicon Valley 13 years later, the market was flooded with eager young clones with IT degrees and 4 years of experience with the latest technologies from the colleges. I worked with young engineers who could code in a half-dozen languages and operating systems but who had forgotten their high school trig. Management had succeeded in separating the engineering from the programming. These kids would work for nothing, and it was hard to compete with them. And guess who paid for their university training? It was me, and people like me.

This same supply-and-demand dynamic is at work today, but that is not the real problem. Its supposed to be that way. The real issue is that this free market mechanism is now being exploited by those who benefit most from it, and financed primarily by its victims.