College is indentured servitude

On the galling financial injustices of American universities

A college classroom.
(Image credit: CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP/Getty Images)

Absolutely nothing about the way we pay for higher education in this country makes sense.

Like many Americans my age, I took on a decent-sized amount of debt to attend college for no good reason (it was what my girlfriend at that time was doing). I don't totally regret those four years: I played the best poker of my life, got very good at the drinking version of Mario Kart (always use Wario), and acquired an encyclopedic knowledge of Dinosaur Jr's catalogue. I also spent a lot of time reading obscure 17th-century dramatists and bothering the put-upon lower-middle-class family men we call "professors" with pretentious questions about the "reputation" of Alexander Pope.

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Matthew Walther

Matthew Walther is a national correspondent at The Week. His work has also appeared in First Things, The Spectator of London, The Catholic Herald, National Review, and other publications. He is currently writing a biography of the Rev. Montague Summers. He is also a Robert Novak Journalism Fellow.