The externalities of education
Photo credit: Michael Biornstad
If these statistics are true, then what then is the unseen benefit of education?
Your body performs its purpose by living, putting one foot in front of the other, digesting food, etc., and it will fulfill that purpose until you die (perhaps even in death itself). But you are more than a body. As an intellectual creature, your final purpose comes in knowing.
You began to ask the question “Why?” almost as soon as you learned to speak and have essentially not stopped since. Aquinas writes, “…the desire in us to know is such that we desire to know the cause when we know an effect.” The incessant question “Why?” was not a childhood phase but a reflection of who you are—as an intellectual creature.
If an education is meant to increase one’s annual salary, the mind becomes a means of a physical end: to stay alive, and perhaps somewhat more comfortably. Your work will then define you because it is guided by a mind in service to one’s body.
When someone questions the economic return on the cost of your education realize what they are asking. Your body will die if you fail to nourish it or if you put it in harm’s way. Do not make the mistake of believing that the same is not true of your mind. Your education is a step in the process of fulfilling the final end as an intellectual creature.
They may say this education wasn’t worth it. But you know better. You know.
Michael Biornstad
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