Recon USMC — I think sending your daughter to The Netherlands would be a good idea, although they have way too many socialists there already. At least she won’t be able to vote there to increase my family’s tax burden. Hence me moving from there to the United States. I am actually pursuing my second graduate degree here, and I am constantly doubting whether I should not drop it altogether and learn a practical profession. My degrees are great though, and I cannot complain about my undergraduate education in The Netherlands either. There is good stuff out there, but it’s RARE. My undergrad was a nice mix of economics, finance, classical philosophy and even some old-school anthropology. My grad degrees here in the US are a PhD in (classical liberal) economics and I’m branching out now with an MA in strategic studies. I still don’t know whether I am making the right decision, but my new MA degree is highly-respected and of excellent quality. I see it as a luxury though to be able to pursue a more abstract type of learning instead of studying applied science that will produce tangible value in the marketplace. If I was a US citizen I would probably go into the military though, but for now, that path is still closed.
The rot in higher education is tremendous. It seems that this will be the next great bubble. At least in the United States, students or their parents bear most of the cost of the education (god forbid the state making it free for all). Across Europe, government subsidizes higher education completely, leading to ridiculous situations where students in their late twenties have been indoctrinated with left-wing philosophy their whole lives at the tax-payer’s expense. At least in the United States costs become so high that people will decide against graduate degrees and enter the productive marketplace. Although in the United States, the huge proliferation of Law schools that supply the pawns to be used in a battle for the ruins of the once proud Common Law and the rising costs associated with them are an area where Europe seems to be more efficient — although I am not sure whether it’s a good thing that a state-controlled organ is that “efficient”.
