By SETH BARNES barnes-
IF I READ ONE MORE “BACK TO SCHOOL and/or college” article detailing all the creature comforts and material “bling” students are equipping themselves with for the coming school year, I’m going to have a meltdown. Seriously, I might have an all-out vomit attack.
For more than a month, I’ve been reading about how the most spoiled, ungrateful, clueless, self-absorbed, unworldly, distracted, and status-obsessed generation in American history is cheerfully headed off to class or university with a Hummer full of personal belongings. Memo to the news media: Enough already. We get it. It’s never been easier to be a pampered brat rolling around in clothes and personal electronics like a pig rolling around in, um, stuff.
USA Today recently reported on the rise of the backpack as the number one accessory and status symbol in school halls from Los Angeles to Lewiston, Maine. Part designer accouterment, part bling-mobile with storage for clothing, cellphone, laptop computer and iPod, we’ve come a long way from skipping off to school with a paper bag lunch and books tied with a string. The little ones have gone luxe when it comes to lugging. And this past Thursday, The Los Angeles Times informed us about “Dorms Gone Deluxe.” Remember that shanty-like, concrete cell where you spent four years drinking light beer while trying to make sense of who you were and what you should do with your life? Boy, were you missing out. Today’s college students are living the life in high-end luxury apartments complete with 24-hour fitness centers, lap pools and granite kitchen counters. There’s nothing left to figure out for young adults, they already have it at their fingertips (most likely with Wi-Fi access).
I’ve read innumerable news reports of kiddies arriving on campus with so much stuff that they can’t fit it in their sizable living quarters. If three roommates all arrive with pimped-out entertainment systems and PlayStation 3s, somebody’s going to get squeezed out. Whatever happened to college students being the most poverty-stricken demographic this side of illegal alien field workers? When I was in college not all that long ago, there was one ATM on campus. And nobody ever used it because we were all poor as sin (which generally happens when your only gainful employment is as an Assistant Library Filing Clerk). If the sub-prime mortgage fallout has you in a bind, consider heading back to school to pick up a new pad! If you can con your parents into footing the bill, all the better.
I always wondered why the cost of a college education continued to rocket well above the rate of inflation. I couldn’t figure out where the increased costs were coming from: Professors weren’t being paid like bankers, most of us still took four classes and the food in the average college dining room was, well, food in an average college dining room. But now it’s all disgustingly clear. To cater to sheltered twits who’ve always gotten whatever they want, universities across the nation have under-taken a building boom. You can’t walk across a campus these days without stumbling upon the Paul J. Moneybags Student Union or the Victor and Sheila Cash Cow Fitness Center. Of course, alumni donations finance a lot of construction, but it’s undeniable that colleges now market themselves to students based on the swank accommodations they can provide.
Is there anything inherently wrong with living the good life if you can afford it? Am I acting like an old fogey at my (relatively) young age for insisting that kids-these-days don’t have it as rough as I did? In part, I think my reaction comes from the heavy dose of reality that we all experience after college. Namely, that you’re at the bottom of the rung no matter how you slice it. This entry-level status isn’t a curse, it’s a blessing because it orients you to the ways and whims of life. That first year or two in your early 20s takes some of the sheen off your idealism and gets you more in tune with reality. We’d all love to do something we have passion for and live in a designer loft, but getting to a place of contentment requires hard work and dedication. My opinion is the higher style of living you have through the end of your childhood, the farther you have to fall when you get out on the gritty streets of real life.
And a $500 North Face backpack isn’t going to make the cubicle in your first job any nicer.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 30, 2007. Read the original PDF.