I read recently that the Price of a Harvard Education was $212,467, and while this is not significantly higher than most other private schools, the average Harvard undergrad graduate has the potential to pay off that value in under three years.
It brought to mind the difference a name makes. Schools like Harvard, Oxford, Yale, and Princeton were names that I knew by heart as a child. They had taken seriously the role of higher education and had nearly perfected the definition. Such prestige surrounds these places that even little children from a family with no higher education know well the legacy they enjoy.
Universities as a whole deal in the currency of degrees; they're the school's face to the world. Most people will never attend one of these premier academic institutions, but they see the product, a graduate that has at their their disposal a mental facility that far surpasses the competition, and a piece of paper the school prints to that bears the name of the University. The person is the product, and the degree is the currency of Harvard.
The United States of America is the greatest nation in the world. There is simply no other place on earth like it. Opportunities abound in ways that no other place can fathom. I was thinking about how significant of a tie there is between the United States, and Harvard. Both set up a quality of life for their respective populations not approachable by most other similar entities, both strive for excellence in all endeavors, and both produce a very prestigious currency.
There is one grave difference however Harvard and the United States; Harvard would never do anything to tarnish the value of its currency. We can trust Harvard to continue to uphold the highest standards of academic excellence for all time, to set high standards for those that are admitted (keeping open doors and pulling from all walks of life, Harvard has the best program for students from underprivileged families in the entire country), and to continue to defend the integrity of their name.
In as much as this is true of Harvard it is sadly not true of the way the country has treated our dollar. In an effort to make sure there are more dollars to go around the U.S. has destroyed the value of the dollar. Rather than uphold its integrity on the global stage we have sold our souls, printing money with no value. Each dollar printed lowers the innate value of every other dollar in circulation. As a person that lives in the lowest tax bracket I have a very healthy understanding of the value of a currency. This country must make drastic efforts to give value back to the dollar. We must win back the respect of the global economy. In the end, we must make our American Dollar the "Million Dollar Degree."
