Stop Your Groaning: Millennials Are Going to Save the World

It's difficult not to come across a Millennial headline every now and then: "Millennials: Trust No One But Twitter;" "Why Millennials Can't Grow Up;" "Narcissistic, broke, and 7 other ways to describe the Millennial generation;" "Millennials are the key to saving retail." The Baby Boomers, and Generation X, are keenly interested in us -- the younger generation.

The geriatrics have spent their time studying our interests, buying patterns, and social media indulgences. There is enough data to make some conclusions. "Narcissists, I tell you." Or, "Lazy, entitled, and love video games too much," they groan. One book summarized the Millennial generation as "Generation Me." I wonder if the old timers are right.

Yes, we have grown up with the internet, laptop, Google, Facebook, and iPhone. Selfies are our creation. We love Netflix, personalized webpages, reality TV on cooking, relationships, celebrities, competitions, and so forth and so forth. It's true that we can post our feelings on a million different social media platforms. Well, maybe not a million, but you get the idea.

But, Millennials are also the most educated of all generations. And guess what: we are also more tolerant, optimistic, and civic-minded. We may even be the Next Greatest Generation because of our pragmatism. So, in a way, Millennials are both self-absorbed and community-oriented.

Articles may discuss, or highlight, our weaknesses but some of them do not put history into perspective. Millennials have gone through the worst recession since the Great Depression. We have also witnessed the most polarized and least efficient political body in United States history. If that weren't enough, we have also been victims of higher education malfeasance and unrestrained avarice. Companies have polluted our waters with DT-50-D. The food we have eaten has been laced with ADA.

We can thank all of the older generations for the above-mentioned realities. So do you think you can excuse Millennials for being a little skeptical, distrustful, alienated -- even a little "narcissistic." There is the notion that we cannot fit into the frameworks institutionalized by the Baby Boomers. It's actually not true. We simply reject their framework.

Family time does not need to be sacrificed for a better career.  A liberal and a conservative can sit at a table together and compromise, without abandoning principles. A person can be wealthy, and successful, without trampling on the least among us. Everything in this world does not have to be so black and white, a zero-sum game.

When I read the articles analyzing Millennials, I can't help but think that this has been done time and time again. The older generations aging -- losing the institutions and values that they had built for a lifetime. Almost half a century-ago, Baby Boomers must have been similarly criticized. It's the way it goes, I suppose.

Do not get me wrong: the older generations have made our world possible. They were the ones who gave Millennials the tools to be self-obsessed. It's just that Millennials have been unfairly mischaracterized. We do not like the way things are moving forward. Millennials are going to do something about it though. We are going to change the world -- for the better.

We Don't Need No Education

"The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education." - Albert Einstein

Every so often I can expect the same article from an online news website: don't bother earning these college degrees. With a cringe on my face, I read it every time, already anticipating what I will read. I am never disappointed after I read it- the author loves to knock philosophy majors.

The whole idea of a college degree is to receive a return on your investment.  Or so says the author whose name appears below the advertisement for the online for-profit school.

There is a problem with treating a college degree like a mutual fund. Learning should be for the sake of learning. Studying American history or calculating probabilities should not be a security deposit for the chance to work on Wall Street. Not everything in this world has to be about increasing your assets and lowering your liabilities.

I always want to point out to the author, being the antagonist that I am, that two of the wealthiest men on Wall Street also happen to be philosophy majors, i.e. Carl Icahn and George Soros. Their combined net worth could pay for 1,000,000 "worthless" college degrees.

Putting aside my education soliloquy, we all know that a college degree is important. It gives individuals the ability to pursue their dreams, whatever those dreams may be. A person with a college degree has a better opportunity to secure a career and earn a higher wage. Thus, a college education can help a person realize his or her goals.

Financing a college education is another story, however. Unfortunately for millions of Americans, the cost of a college education is rising astronomically. It does not help that median incomes have been stagnant. Since 2009, the median income in our country has decreased 4.4%, while productivity has continued to rise.

Inequality, both in income and access to education, will widen as college becomes more unaffordable.  We are starting to see the effects: low-income students are not being represented at selective universities. Only 34% of high-achieving students in low-income brackets went on to an elite school, while 78% of students in the high-income bracket did.

For low-income families, an obvious conundrum falls into their lunch pails. How does one pay for a college education, does it mean that one has to forgo purchasing a home or saving for retirement? The answer: student loans.

Because of the difficulty in paying out-of-pocket for a college education, it has become necessary to borrow to attend. Student loans now account for $1.2 trillion of our national debt. That is 6% of the overall outstanding debt. It is becoming a problem for everyone.

When a student finally graduates from college, they now have the burden of having to start their life deep in debt. The outcomes of this tragic phenomena is less entrepreneurship and less of a willingness to take risks. Of course, that will decrease the chances of having another Steve Jobs or Elon Musk. How does one move on an innovative idea when they cannot even afford to make the May installment payment? Again, the costs of higher education will become a problem for our future generations.

I become enthused when I see prospective students taking initiative to find ways to pay for college. One program allows individuals to invest into a student with the student later paying the investor a portion of his earnings. Not a typical financial arrangement, but it allows the student to not have to pay a "faceless institution."Yet the ingenuity is not enough to confront the complex situation our country faces. We need systemic reform.

President Obama is attempting to push the conversation forward but it is difficult. The politics of today is poisonous. Any common sense discussion of reform is pushed to the side for partisan attacks.

My approach would be three-fold, if I had the ability to effectuate policy change. First, there needs to be a different metric in tying federal aid to secondary education. I agree with President Obama that costs and graduation rates need to be factors in assessing the school's eligibility. Second, I would initiate broad economic reforms to spur middle-income growth, i.e. a real progressive tax, corporate tax holiday to bring back cash to the United States, increase the minimum wage, and implement means-testing to entitlements, among other things.

Finally, I would make every college student take a philosophy course, which will probably mean that there will be a new "worthless" college degrees list for the author...Perhaps students will find personal value in their degrees, not just monetary value. A man can dream right?