No Brainer!

Do I really want to go to college?

In the early 1960s, this was not a “no-brainer”. A high school senior possessing an “in” with a trade union or at a big manufacturing plant would make more money and (surprisingly) have more job security than a recent college grad toiling in a cubicle. When I started at Air Products, specialty welders brought home a bigger paycheck than engineers did. Thirty years later, engineers were “downsized” and were emptying out their desks under the watchful eye of Security while those welders were still working.

Going back to the 1960s, it all changed when the Vietnam War heated up. Unless you had a “debilitating heel spur”, the military draft sucked up everyone who wasn’t a college student. Walking across the Quad carrying books was a lot more fun than crawling across a rice paddy toting an M-16. College or combat? That was a true “no-brainer”.

It’s different today. Colleges offer dormitory suites, multiple dining options, open gyms with climbing walls and yoga classes, etc. College students have a better life style on campus than they will after graduation. Also, what high school senior wouldn’t exchange his cramped bedroom at home and Mom’s meatloaf for a dormitory suite and Pizza Night at the Student Union?

College students can earn extra money as “test subjects”. The reason why highway signs are white letters on a “forest green” background is that college students found that color combination more legible than black letters on a white background or some combination of black and yellow.

Those “sleep tests” must really be fun. “Sorry I missed your 8 AM class, Professor. I was deep in REM slumber as part of the Med School Test Program. Here’s my data printout to prove it.”

Even more fun was a recent double-blind randomized clinical trial. It found that people with alcohol dependence who took psilocybin, a psychedelic compound in “magic mushrooms,” drank significantly less than those taking a placebo, with almost half stopping drinking alcohol altogether.

Now that would get a lot of college student volunteers. “Roomie, I know you are upset that I’ve gotten drunk every night for the past month, but I have to develop an alcohol dependence for this clinical trial. Next week, I’ll take “magic mushrooms”. If they work, I’ll stop drinking.”

Kids today have it great. Would I rather be a college student in 1965 or in 2022? That’s a true “no-brainer”.

By Ed Dufton