Apologies to Ogden Nash,

College breeds knowledge
but booze yields truths

From time to time, I hear the pseudo-socialists that populate fashionable campuses clamor about separating colleges from the economic pressures they feel and create. Such an idea is a product of idealism so sentimental it makes babies and puppy dogs alike vomit. Whether we measure wealth by dollars, shares of stock, shotgun shells, or virgins reserved for us in paradise, substantial universities will be economic institutions until societies no longer face any scarcities. Trying to reform colleges without changing society at large would be like filling your gas tank with hydrogen in the fervent hope that your Honda's four-cylinder internal combustion engine will turn into a fuel cell once it realizes the advantages of the new.
Part of the problem in discussing this issue has been that universities operate with an almost incomprehensible amount of money. Any sort of tower requires a great deal of funding to operate, and those made of ivory require more polishing than most. To put it in familiar terms: If my current alma mater, Stanford University, shut down tomorrow, it could give a dollar to every single man, woman, and child on the face of the Earth. Or it could give me 6 billion dollars, preferably in small un-marked bills. This godlike wealth deserves not only our respect and consideration but also a healthy dose of human sacrifice and graven image worship. I am not so vain in my abilities as a writer to think that this essay could form a holy text for the nascent religion of Educationism.
In a fortuitous and purely random coincidence, this topic is precisely large enough to require a series of mediocre and mildly repetitive essays on the subject. I accept this charge. I will discuss all the interesting aspects of educational economics, like tuition and financial aid, legacy admission, $30,000 palm trees, student group funding, and the like. Only in instances of uncommon desperation will I revert to the boring aspects like student theater, class distinctions, and textbook prices. For the sake of my readers, I promise to skewer celebrities like James Clark and Jane Fonda who fabricate excuses to renege on their pledges after the stock market has an off-week and they panic to find their hundreds of millions whittled down to the mere pittance of tens of millions. Throughout this series, I will highlight the stupidity of administrators and bureaucracies wherever they may exist (mainly because these stupidities exist anywhere either administrators or bureaucracies do). After tearing down, examining, and satirizing everything that is wrong with our system, I will put it back together in a new shape, a better shape: An educational system that every capable person may attend without incurring crushing debt. A system where money is spent only for the absolutely necessary or incredibly shiny. Where teachers are paid enough to attract, if not the best and brightest, at least the better and brighter. For this invaluable service, I require nothing more than your attention and consideration. And, during our half-price sale, 3 billion dollars in small, unmarked bills.

Yes, we are the Enfranchised. Its like "the Enlightened" but with a bittersweet bite of self-conscious irony. White, middle-class and pissed off that nobody seems to think we've got anything to be pissed off about. As a people we are minorities of nothing; as individuals we are the ultimate minority.We are slow-mo Hobos in a PoMoWo. Our idea of multi-cultural is the food court at the mall. We are those subjects left out of subjectivity. We are the jagged center of the fragmented world. We know no movements, no trends, no wisdom. The pendulum continues its swing and we hold on for dear life. Is there room on the bookshelves and gallery walls for us? Or are doomed to a life lonely in endless WASP opportunity? We hereby seek to answer that and other questions. And we apologize in advance. We're sorry. We are truly and profoundly sorry.

-Fosterius

We are The Enfranchised. We are the stereotypical. Our troubles are inconsequential. Since our writing is "bereft of substance", in the words of some, we turn to style. We promise you the best dog and pony show that studying dead white men can give. We will steal blatantly from sources you would not otherwise have heard of. Sources so obscure and magnificent that you will be wowed even as you turn to google to find the original. You won't find it there.
The Enfranchised: Plagiarism at its most original.