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Writer's pictureMartyn Foster

The price of higher education

Needing a degree for everything devalues higher education.


The price of higher education

Once reserved for a gentleman and a scholar

Now thanks to capitalism

Opened up to all who take up the offer


The business of teaching

The treadmill of tutelage

The only thing higher, the loans

Degrees, suspect in quality or usage


The outcome of obtaining a degree

We’ve confused the end goal

To be proficient in a field

Instead we’ve sold our soul


Market equilibrium

Keynesian land

Needing a degree for everything

Manufactures demand


“Intellectual idiots”

What is their use?

Overqualified and underskilled

Indentured servitude is their noose


What’s the point of being educated?

“Beauty is for the few”

Decadence and degeneration

Rose coloured glasses is their hue


What is the task of all higher education?

To turn man into machine

It’s no longer a privilege

Many going that shouldn’t have been


A prolonged infantilism

To put off adulthood

University, a place of testing, not shelter

Yet many remain in childhood


If one wants slaves

Don’t educate for masters

Educators hired for desired results

Private school nepotistic disasters


The masses best off with

Technical trades and practical skills

Make yourself useful or

A penny for your thoughts, nil


Why bother with history, philosophy, literature?

Where do you go to become learned?

Pick your institutions and mentors wisely

Open and opposing people you will yearn


No substitute for hard work

Reading and experiencing life

No “higher” in higher education

Preference over truth is rife


Students, Educators, the System

Where does the fault lie?

Purpose and responsibility

What future do you want to try?

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2 Comments


Awry Stoic
Awry Stoic
Dec 02, 2023

Did capitalism do this, or socialism? The more government forces uniformity in prices, the lower standards universities have, the more universities are subsidized by government, and the less university courses have to do with reality. That's not capitalism. That's government control. Did capitalism require everyone to get a degree, or did government encourage lowering of standards so that everyone can get a degree?

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Martyn Foster
Martyn Foster
Dec 04, 2023
Replying to

First of all, thank you Awry Stoic for joining my website and commenting on my article - or in this case, poem. Secondly, in poetry form, exploration of ideas is done differently than in my other articles and thus it may look reductionistic / not fleshed out. Governmental involvement in higher education varies throughout the world, but in my country of Australia we have Commonwealth Supported Places (CSP) for some, but not all subjects and HECS-HELP loans for domestic students who cannot afford their university tuition up front. To my understand, at public universities this level is set by the Government, but at private institutions this determined by their board (course entrance requirements are set by each university). As Government…

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