Page 20 THE VILLADOM TIMES III • October 2, 2013 What price college? A bankrupt America? Way back in the 20 th century, advertising writers smugly stated that a college degree meant an additional million dollars in lifetime wages -- or some such figure. Fast-forward to the 21 st century. A recent national survey reports that college degrees in at least eight fields are unlikely to pay for themselves. That survey implies that people who pursue those majors would be better off not signing loans that will, with accrued interest as opposed to possible savings or investments from future wages, potentially cost them a large amount of money -- though probably less than a million dollars. The worst major of them all is English, unless you teach the subject at a high-ticket high school or at a university. Try getting one of those jobs unless you are an Ivy Leaguer or know somebody in the administration. The reported median career salary for a news reporter is $37,393. That is a lot lower than the starting salary of an English teacher in most public schools. A marketing coordinator’s median salary is said to be $50,455 and an advertising copywrit- er’s median salary is said to be $52,549. I have sometimes done better than that. I have done better than that by working three jobs at the same time. I have sometimes done worse, but why think about it? As Richard Nixon once observed, journalism is a profession where people can use a second-rate mind to earn a fifth- rate paycheck. Next is psychology. A human services worker can expect a median salary of $22,736, a career counselor can expect $43,3844, and a bereavement coordinator can expect $52,200. Helping others is useful work, but it does not seem to pay very well. Sociology: A social worker can expect a median salary of $47,121, a corrections officer (jail guard or parole offi- cer) can expect $39,630, and a chemical dependency coun- selor can expect $47,210. Weigh wages against risk to life and limb, and you will see that you could be better off with English or psychology. Fine arts: A graphic designer can expect $47,753, a museum research worker can expect $47,753, and a painter or illustrator can expect $37,819. Nutrition: A dietician can expect a median salary of $53,679, a food services manager (an administrative post) can expect $56,711, and a food scientist with mul- tiple degrees in the sciences can expect $64,619. People obviously must care more about feeding their bodies than about feeding their minds. Hospitality: A meeting and event planner can expect a median salary of $55,476, a senior-level hotel resident manager can expect $65,076, and a catering manager can expect $42,633. A couple of years ago, my wife and I had lunch at the Culinary Institute of America and the kids who were stu- dents there all thought they were going to make $100,000 a year right out of the door. At least the poor kids probably won’t starve. Religious work: A religious educator can expect a median wage of $47,957, a chaplain can expect $51,127, and an associate pastor can expect $61,611. Many pastors and their families receive a manse, or residence, along with the salary, which they are expected to use for counseling. The long-term problem is that they do not accrue any own- ership in real estate, which is the single most substantial savings program for the American middle class. Education: A day care center teacher or supervisor can expect a median salary of $27,910, an elementary school teacher can expect $52,241, and a high school teacher can expect $54,473. Salaries are higher around here, but so are housing costs, as in “Where can we find a place to live near the school?” Educators tend to be the top level of the worst-choice college majors because they are unionized. People who are not union members generally make $60 to $100 a day filling in for teachers even when they have the same degree and a teaching certificate. The eight worst college-degree jobs, according to the survey, all revolve around some sort of human service important to people in need, and they are mostly acces- sible to people without advanced math skills or abilities in difficult foreign languages. They are, in short, the college incentive for people who may not be college material. Those who assume that studying something that is not too arduous will entitle them to a sweat-free lifetime job with a spacious home, multiple cars, and annual vacations to Europe may be engaging in a systematic delusion to keep them away from radical politics in college. Ameri- cans who are proficient in higher mathematics, engi- neering, chemistry, or “strategic” languages like Arabic, Chinese, and Russian are probably not going to have to settle for the minimum wage unless they have serious per- sonality problems or cannot pass a loyalty check. People who think a soft degree from a safety school is going to pave their future street with gold need a crash course in economics: Money follows productive work, not diploma-mill diplomas. They also need a minor in psy- chology so they recognize systematic delusions in others and in themselves. Any non-physical danger to the individual is subject to the psychological process of denial: “That may happen to other people, but it won’t happen to me.” Have you ever seen anyone who is listening to the same conversation you are, but just cannot get it? I once saw a senior newspaper editor who was also a skilled amateur boxer take a slap in the face from a publisher he could have decked in two moves, probably without repercussions, since they were both drunk at the time. This happened in front of 200 people who knew them both. “I couldn’t have taken a slap in the face like that,” I told him with a mixture of sympathy and dismay. “Nobody slapped me in the face,” he said. I think he believed it. He needed to believe it because he needed the job. That is systematic delusion in action. More recently, and somewhat less violently, a guy who does not like me turned up a photograph that he claimed was positive proof that “Sergeant August Finckle” was NOT, absolutely NOT, Frank Finkel, who claimed to be a survivor of Custer’s Last Stand. A couple of the dumber Custer admirers agreed with him. The smarter ones had the sense not to speak. I cold-tested some ID professionals on the two photos. I asked them to tell me if these were the same guy, but did not tell them why it was important. A portrait photographer, a portrait painter, and a physi- cal anthropologist said the two photographs were of the same man photographed at different ages. So did several dozen intelligent amateurs. One needs to be emotionally involved for a systematic delusion to work. The idea of “college for everybody” is an inflicted sys- tematic delusion because one political party gets a huge monetary support from the teachers’ unions and sees promises of college for everybody as a way of making sure the money keeps flowing in, even though many of the col- lege graduates will have wasted large amounts of capital and will still not be able to land college graduate jobs. Conversely, the other party, the one that resists a mean- ingful increase in the minimum wage, fosters a systematic delusion on the part of people who already have it made, or still believe they can make it on their own. People who have never had to literally live from paycheck to paycheck even when they work more than one job just cannot believe, or choose not to, that $7.25 an hour after taxes will not cover shelter and food. The people who are very rich through the labor of the underpaid have their own answer to this: They help their workers sign up for every program that provides Food Stamps or supplemental income so the population as a whole can foot the rest of their bill for the underpaid workers who work long hours to make them rich. This is sort of like the “patriotism” of the politicians who whoop and holler to send our soldiers overseas to fight in dubious battles after the same politicians copped every deferment they could when there was still a draft. The American people, to their immense credit, made it known that they were opposed to any more “boots on the ground” in Syria and that air strikes were also unacceptable when nobody could be sure which side was doing what. They should do the same about using “college for everybody” as an excuse not to offer realistic wages, perhaps even based on the level of education, to people who were born here or went through the mill for citizenship, instead of relying on the dwindling number of people who are still gainfully employed to cover the wages of soft college majors who can only find tax-funded jobs in the public sector, while those who cannot find such jobs get $7.25 an hour plus Food Stamps. Delicacies from afar Waldwick Chamber of Commerce President Christine Figliuolo (left) and Waldwick Mayor Tom Giordano (right) help Atul Thakur, owner of the Bombay Hut, cut the ribbon for his new business. Bombay Hut, located at 8A West Prospect Street in Waldwick, specializes in deli- cious foods from India.