think
What’s Next
Kids? Cap n’ Gown Oratory for the Ages By Jaq Greenspon
I
t’s that time of year again: the end of another school year. For some, it’s also the end of a segment of life. There are mile-markers we all recognize, which come every May and June. It starts as graduation. We have graduation from every step of our school cycle: graduations from kindergarten, from primary school. Graduation from middle-school, where you feel like the king of the world — until you hit high school in the fall, that is, and realize you’re right back where you started, that it’ll take another four years to reach that pinnacle again. Four years later comes the big one. That moment when it’s all over and we get the sense that all the other graduations were mere shadows, rehearsals, playing dress-up compared to the long walk we’re about to take. Then we stride across that stage as they call our name, get handed an empty diploma cover and smile for our parents (as we take quick pictures before running to join our friends and find out about parties and who got a car and who’s leaving for college and university).
Then it hits. Almost everyone is going to college or university. Not necessarily 300-year-old Ivy League institutions, but certainly to some sort of
higher education destination. And if they weren’t going out of state, or out of town, they were going to attend, at the very least, a twoyear community college, with the idea of transferring to a four-year school as soon as possible. So, really, the big ceremony is graduation from the four-year school: the commencement ceremony where thousands of students each year receive bachelor’s degrees asserting their worth and place in society. It’s not as though they have a choice anymore. The lamentation that a college degree is needed now, where a high school diploma used to suffice, is sadly true. HR directors report they’d rather hire a prospect with a university degree than one without. And the option is there for them. Even though the job market is getting better and the unemployment rate is dropping, it’s still a buyer’s paradise. Things have been moving this way since the end of World War II, when returning soldiers were able to make use of the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 – the G.I. Bill. Suddenly, farm boys who’d never thought about moving to the city had the opportunity to attend a university and improve their lots in life. They had kids, the Baby Boomers. And since every generation wants the next one to do better than the one before, a college or university degree became
42 JUNE 2014 | www.davidlv.com
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