When I am King: In Tuition

When I am King...

Families will no longer pay expensive college tuition.

Many parents in the U.S. are trying to figure out both sides to an expensive equation: how do we push our kids hard enough academically so that they can get into a good school, and how do we come up with the approximately $19 million that that education would cost?

But there's a solution here to both problems that is far simpler: ensure that the kids won't get accepted into college. Think about it: if the kids can't get into a 'good' school, then their college education will probably cost far less. But if they don't get into any school at all, then they won't get into any college and will be forced to go out and get a job instead. Sure, it'll probably be for some paltry salary, but would you rather have them earning minimum wage or going severely into debt each semester for tuition, fees, room, and board just to learn how to drink heavily?

Leaving children to their own devices isn't good enough; some kids are clever enough to just learn on their own, regardless of how much incessant, overbearing, nagging pressure we refuse to lay on top of them.

So we'll have to be smarter about it if we want to avoid that sinkhole of debt in our future. After all, don't they get enough of our pennies with their constant whining for diapers, food, and medicine as they grow up? At some point, this charity must end.

When I am King, I will push for a series of requirements and recommendations for parents, including the following:

• Have the children watch TV all day and night, but put a parent lock on anything that might be remotely educational, like PBS and .... Just put a parent lock on PBS. Encourage them to watch the daytime talk shows. Not only will this mind-numbing content atrophy their brains, but the guests on these shows will provide good role models for them in their future life.
• Go over their homework with them, but get it wrong and convince them of why it's actually correct. The hard part here is not to just fail the homework, but to fail to grasp the concepts entirely.
• Have the dog eat their homework on a frequent basis. Besides causing the child to fail these individual assignments, this process will teach them how far pathetic excuses will go in society.
• Have them miss the big tests at school, especially the standardized ones. Take them out to the mall to just hang out on those days instead.
• Provide a nighttime environment for them that makes deep sleep impossible. On the off-chance that they actually want to learn during the day, you should make that an impossible task.

The amount of debt that average families hold is tragic. Why make the situation worse by having to pile unaffordable college tuition on top of it? Instead, let's have our kids skip the college route entirely and enter into society earlier, debt-free. We know, from the boardgame of Life, that skipping college is an entirely viable option that can sometimes work out. But regardless, it will be less stress on our bank accounts, and we'll probably be dead by the time the kids regret it.