Columns

"My plan [after graduating] is to go abroad and make it big. In fact, I don't plan on coming back until I can pay off my loan, and have enough money left over to buy a small offshore island."

I wrote these naive words in a 2005 edition of Canta. I went overseas, but three and a half years later when I paid off my student loan, I realised that I still wasn't qualified to be paid in real money, so I continued my education at a university in Europe. After graduating for a second time and paying off my new loan with a part-time job as a lunch-lady, I finally came back to New Zealand to start working... on a new student loan.

My name is Ruben, and I am addicted to education. Education has ruined my life. I tried quitting several times, but governments are loan sharks that keep enabling my disease. They say that education is the key, but they don't tell you what's behind that door. It could be a job. It could be a dinosaur that will immediately bite you clean off at the waist. Most likely you'll find another door. Education is like Zelda or Prince of Persia; a game of constant searching for the next key.

Of course, people tell me my post-graduation failure is my own fault for taking liberal arts courses such as feminist studies. The question is, is it better to enjoy your time at university and not have a clue what you'll do when you graduate, or study something you hate where you're 50% guaranteed to get a job where you'll be miserable, but at least you'll have enough money to buy things to make your stay-at-home wife stop her incessant nagging?

Thankfully, the University is working together with the government to simplify this question by making huge cuts, especially in the liberal arts programme. It will be a Jetsons-like future when universities are cookie cutter factories that produce graduates for mind-numbing desk jobs. Soon the only creative decision we'll have to make is whether to wear a blue tie or a grey tie. There's no place for the liberal arts, because as the Hon. John Key said earlier this year, "Now is the time to be conservative".

As a fiscally responsible citizen and a recovering education-addict, I wholeheartedly welcome the dissolution of as many liberal arts programmes as possible. They – and their dedicated lecturers – are responsible for the mess I am in, continually enticing me with deeply interesting courses, allowing me to travel all over the world and back, taking classes with extremely favourable ratios, making my parents proud, and teaching me to think creatively about an endless variety of different issues. And yet, I can't even think what to do with myself.

I envy the students of tomorrow with a future where their education isn't hindered by so much choice. The University should take it to the logical conclusion and replace all classes with a six-week course of Mavis Beacon. Role models always tell kids to stay in school, but the real trick is finding your way out. My dream was to buy an island, but education has left me stranded on one.