Investing in Hedonistic Pleasures
THE educational cost for a student enrolled at Dartmouth fall, winter, and spring terms of 1975-76 is estimated at a whopping $6,395: $3,900 for tuition; $720 for the average room rent; $1,075 for a 21-meal-per-week board contract; and $700 for such incidentals as books, fees, laundry, clothing, travel, entertainment, and beer.
That total, of course, increases yearly - or has for as long as I've been enrolled. The cost of four years to this year's "average" Dartmouth freshman (not taking financial aid into account) is bound to be substantially more than $25,000.
I don't know of any students who are footing that kind of bill all on their own. Most of it obviously comes out of the pockets of parents, out of the coffers of the financial aid office, or through the student loan program - with a good share the product of summer and part-time school year earnings. The point is that just to finance an education at beautiful Camp Dartmouth you're talking about the investment of a lot of time and money, particularly when compared with the cost of attending a state college or university. The big question is what is that investment worth?
To students like me who have majored in the humanities or social sciences, the investment is presently worth very little in terms of immediate employment possibilities. I'm not sure if I'm doubly blessed or doubly cursed with majors in both English and religion. As a prospective graduate I find myself trained and qualified for nothing more than additional schooling. Come June I could go on to a graduate program in my major and try to obtain an eventual teaching position and then begin to worry about publishing and tenure, or I could try to get into law school and begin worrying about earning enough money to send my son or daughter to Dartmouth.
I've thought of joining the Peace Corps ("If you're not sure of what you want when you graduate, you can always join the Peace Corps ... but on reading their application I found out they want people who are qualified to "do" something beside write a paper on Antony andCleopatra or talk about the subtle differences between Lutheran and Calvinist theology. I'd need to learn how to repair a carburetor or milk a hundred cows to be a qualified applicant. Good intentions and high ideals are not enough.
If a high school student asks me about attending Dartmouth I'll have to warn as well as encourage him. I wish I could tell him not to worry too soon about a major or about what he will do after he graduates, but to concentrate on what kind of person he is becoming, what values are important to him, and to study anything and everything that interests him without regard to its "practicality."
I'll have to warn him that a major in the liberal arts, although personally rewarding, is an expensive luxury and a risk in terms of related future employment. I'll warn him that if he wants to be prepared to "do" anything when he graduates, and if he wants to be competitive as a candidate for professional training, he'd better study something practical as well. I should warn him that there are planty of noneducational ways (commonly known as "gut" courses) around the distributive requirements in every discipline, and that he ought to take it upon himself to take legitimate courses in mathematics and the sciences.
But if, because of perversity or stubbornness, he insists on wanting to invest $25,000 and four years in something as ridiculous as art history, medieval literature, religion, or Greek at an expensive place like Dartmouth, I'll do my best to encourage him. I'll tell him that he'll have to think for himself and to express himself articulately, that he'll encounter professors and students who demand his best efforts, and that he'll be given the chance to develop the intellectual tools eventually to do anything he wants. He'll be expected to reason, not just recite, and on the basis of that ability to learn how to learn for himself anything he needs to know.
If he asks me what I'm going to do when I graduate I'll frankly admit that I don't know. Not because I have no immediate options open, but because I don't want to make an exclusive decision yet between the options available. I have few, if any, marketable skills, but I have time to decide what skills I want to develop. I can always support myself; I've washed dishes and sold shoes before. Who says a graduate needs a "career" as soon as he graduates?
Besides, I'd rather climb Mt. McKinley, bike across the country, build a log cabin, hike in Nepal, pick fruit in California, and sail in the Pacific for a few years than settle immediately into pre-planned security. When will I get a chance to "waste" time again? After I retire? I'm not willing to wait that long.
If you look at college education as an investment, rather than just as a time filler or social necessity, you have to decide exactly what you are investing in. If you are looking for maximum earnings in minimum time, a degree in the humanities, to the tune of $25,000, might be a practical mistake. If you're looking, however, for a process of education that doesn't terminate with the receipt of your A. B. degree, an investment in the hedonistic pleasures of the humanities at Dartmouth might be worthwhile.
No either/or question of money or values, it is a situation where you find yourself affirming that a liberal education may in the long run be the most practical education; that the adjective "liberal" may be best defined as "generous"; and that what presently has little market value may, in terms of what gives a lifetime meaning, prove to be most valuable.
"I'll have to warn aswell as encourage..."
A Westerner (Tacoma, Washington), DanNelson reflected on the humanities duringa summer of climbing and working in Mt.Rainier National Park. For variety he alsospent his junior year living in a log cabin inThetford, Vermont. He shares the duties ofundergraduate editor and WhitneyCampbell 1925 Intern with David Shribman '76, and will write this column inalternate months.The Campbell Internship was established last year by Robert Borwell '25to provide undergraduates with practicalexperience in journalism.
