My buddy Rico had an interesting childhood.

He was reared in the second-to-worst trailer park in Bossier City. His dad was a roughneck who left for a stretch to work on the Alaskan pipeline. Rico was poorer than any of us, but we really didn't think much about those things in those days.

Then, sophomore year, Rico's dad inherited some land from Rico's great-uncle. Along with the land came letters from Texaco asking Rico's dad to please allow them to extract the rumored oil or gas from beneath his newly acquired property. (Apparently, for reasons that remain obscure, Rico's great-uncle had been opposed to any drilling on the land.)

Next thing you know, Rico's dad's a millionaire.

Kinfolk said y'all need to build you a mini-manse out in the new suburb north of the city limits with a motocross track in the backyard. (You never know; Rico might be a Freddie Spencer in waiting.) Get yourself some custom-made draperies dyed eye-stinging maroon to set off the new white Steinway piano.

Suddenly Rico's bedroom was bigger than his old trailer. Suddenly he had a Gibson Flying V and a T-top Trans Am. But he was the same Rico.

He was the guy who got a hole in one the first time he ever played golf, on a nine-hole par-three goat track under the lights. On his first swing he shanked a nine-iron off a metal utility shed and it came off at an acute angle, bounced onto the green and dribbled into the hole. He quit the game on the spot.

He was the guy who really did wake up in Mexico once, with a fresh wife and a new tattoo. One of them was easier to get rid of than the other.

He went to junior college in Texas on a baseball scholarship and I lost track of him for a few years, but then ran into him at a Jason and the Scorchers show in Dallas. Afterwards some of the band and I went back to Rico's high-rise apartment with white shag carpet, refrigerator stocked with Coronas and a glass-wall view of sparkling downtown, and caught up.

I asked Rico how he kept himself occupied, and he allowed that he was enrolled in but not actually attending school.

"They gave me about $20,000 in loans," he said. "I figure that'll last until the next royalty check."

That was the last time I saw Rico.

That revelation didn't cause me to cut ties with him; if I recognized Rico pumping gas at the Circle K I'd walk up and say howdy. And maybe I'd hear his story about how his poor decisions eventually caught up with him and one day a certified letter arrived in the mail that dropped his stomach below his knees and kicked his heart into his throat.

I like Rico, but he didn't deserve to have his loans forgiven. He probably deserved a little jail time.

Maybe there are a few Ricos mixed in with the crowd that had some of their student loan debt wiped away last week. Some people game the system and end up profiting. (Some do it for 50 years, and end up at the front of a cult of personality. Maybe that certified letter is coming for him too.) But Rico and his ilk aren't the point.

I understand if you don't like that certain loans have been forgiven. Fair enough. Maybe you paid all your debts; no one ever gave you a break. Or maybe you were fortunate enough to get through school without incurring much or any debt; maybe you went to school in the '70s or the '80s. Maybe you earned a scholarship or cobbled together work-study gigs. Maybe your parents helped you out.

Or maybe, like Rico, you burned through the money and incurred obligations because you were young, stupid and had at least a trace of larceny in your heart. But you still had to pay back every penny. No one ever did for you what has been done for the forgiven.

But we should realize our colleges and universities aren't what they're supposed to be; they're not sober capitals of learning where people are trained to seek after truth and beauty and the life of the mind is prioritized. They're profit centers you pay to obtain entry into a field of employment. (Bonus points if the athletic programs are solid.) It's something you have to do if you want to become an economically viable citizen.

That's wrong. You ought to be able to earn a decent middle-class living without having a college degree. College ought to be an option, and it ought to actually be an education.

A lot of people invest a lot in going to a prestigious school like Harvard or Stanford because of the value these associations add to their brand, not because Harvard and Stanford educate their undergraduate students better. They may make them more desirable to employers (there are employers who are enamored of Ivy League applicants) but studies have shown it's easier to get a top-level education at a smaller liberal arts college like, say, Hendrix College than at a place with a lot of famous faculty members who write books and go on TV and pursue research.

At Hendrix, it's likely that your English professor will know not just your name, but who you are.

Most of us who don't work in technical fields probably didn't learn a lot of practical stuff in college. And we probably didn't work that hard; an engaged person of average intelligence who's interested in the world and bothers to show up and turn in assignments can probably handle college. Most of the most important things we learn in college happen outside the classroom.

What is important about college is the experience of being a young adult navigating your way through a new world populated by strangers. You had to make your own bed, make your own decisions and live with them. It instilled discipline. (A lot of us would have been better off in the military.)

Or it didn't. For some of us, college was a relatively safe place to fail.

But it shouldn't be what it has been turned into: a for-profit scam fueled by the perceived indispensability of a college education and easily obtainable federally insured student loans. If something is presented to you as a prerequisite of the good life, you might be willing to pay for it, especially if you can sign on the line and get a check.

When I got started in this business, it was still possible to get hired by a daily newspaper on the strength of your personality. The only journalism department classes I took concerned photography (and they taught me an important skill which has come in handy). Now you need an expensive graduate degree to get in the door.

Higher education is broken in this country and a lot of people are saddled with debt because they were naive enough to believe what they were mortgaging their future earnings for was worth it, that the credential they were buying would open a door to a better life for them. They were, in effect, swindled.

And while the people who profited from perpetrating the swindle are probably too insulated to be called to account, the best thing for the country is to relieve these victims of at least some of their obligation to repay the swindlers.

Philip Martin is a columnist and critic for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at pmartin@adgnewsroom.com.

Print Headline: Last time I saw Rico

This document may not be reprinted without the express written permission of Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc.

Material from the Associated Press is Copyright © 2022, Associated Press and may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press text, photo, graphic, audio and/or video material shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium. Neither these AP materials nor any portion thereof may be stored in a computer except for personal and noncommercial use. The AP will not be held liable for any delays, inaccuracies, errors or omissions therefrom or in the transmission or delivery of all or any part thereof or for any damages arising from any of the foregoing. All rights reserved.