While reading chapter 3 in The new Urban Sociology George Simmel’s
story about Hans the farmer caught my attention. Hans moved from a small
farming town into a major city. He has some issues adjusting to the city
lifestyle but in the end becomes assimilated with the norms of city life. The
aspect of this story that really stood out was how Simmel attributes the change
in Hans’ lifestyle to the pursuit of capital. Hans essentially is no longer a
person but rather a tool for producing income. Hans eventually categorizes his
life in accordance with producing the maximum amount of income for himself. The
rituals of his life that were done for survival in his home town no longer
carried the same importance because survival in city life is based on having
enough income to buy the goods needed to survive rather than producing them one’s
self. I see this same transformation of values being taught in the secondary
education system of our country. Individuals feel a pressure to attain a
bachelors or associates degree at the minimum in order to live a successful
life. The definition of being successful is the same driving force Hans faced in
city. Being successful is directly linked to the amount of income one makes in
our current society. So individuals are now attending college with the belief
that they need a degree to earn enough income to survive. No longer are the institutions
helping students learn how to better themselves as individuals. They are now
focused mainly on preparing their students to seamlessly enter and contribute
to their work place. As more and more individuals have access to a college
education the new minimal standard to be considered for a well paying job is
transitioning to some college education.
The issue with
this rising standard is the cost of a college education in the modern world.
College is not cheap by any stretch of the imagination and too often students
need to take on government loans in order to pay for their schooling and this
is where the problem begins. If individuals must have a degree to be considered
for a job in the modern economy, they will often not think of the cost of
attaining that degree because it is seen as a necessity. This cost then haunts
them through the early years of their career because of the amount of debt that
can accumulate over years of student loans. This means that when a student
leaves college they begin to rationally calculate all of their habits in order
to pay off their loan debt as soon as possible. Similar to the way Hans
calculates all his actions in the hope to maximize his capital. This mentality
is no longer specific to urban city life, but rather has become a trend seen in
modern cities everywhere.
This vicious cycle
of societal pressure can cause many individuals to peruse capital and nothing
else. There is a need for income to attend school and then the name need for adequate
income to pay for school after the fact. It would seem to me that one’s source
of income becomes the main factor in their decision making process. The same
thing happened to Hans when he finally became accustomed to life in a big city.
According to a CNN article there are as many as 40 million Americans who live
with student loan debts. The average amount of debt is between 23,000 and
29,000 dollars with the national amount of debt reaching as high as 1.2
trillion dollars. While this may be the highest student loan totals have ever
reached the government still gives loans to any student that applies because
they are confident that those debts will be repaid when students set out into
the real world. The initial burden right as student finish school determines how
they will begin the rest of their life. As illustrated in the cartoon above
often students will move back into their parent’s house because they cannot
afford to live on their own and pay off their student debts. There is then a
pressure on their parents to support their children beyond the time frame they
had initially planned for.
It seems that all
life decisions in the modern era are based off the need to have income. This mentality
may have started in urban city centers where everyday life is very impersonal,
but it is now spreading to all communities rural or urban. That is a problem
individuals should not have to base their life decisions on the pursuit of adequate
income. Because too often that pursuit can cause individuals to feel inadequate
in society based on their income. I believe that as long as an individual is
happy and contributing to society in some way they should be viewed with
positive attitudes even if they have a low level of income. Being able to make
enough money to be viewed with high status in society may too often will put
individuals in extreme amounts of debt. Without this debt they would be able to
spend their money in ways they determine necessary rather than spending it on
what society deems important.
http://money.cnn.com/2014/09/10/pf/college/student-loans/
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