Does factual evidence show that we are living in a bold new "Age of Aquarius" in which young people throw off the strictures of their square parents' uptight generation and forge their own path, outside of the square uptight money-focused world where everything is always about money and shit? The answer is a resounding "yes, dad." For not only are The Youth giving up on law school—they're giving up on business school, as well.

The ongoing (but maybe soon to end?) teachers' strike in Chicago is being viewed by many as an early skirmish in a coming war over the crisis in public education—stagnant or declining graduation rates, substandard educations, dilapidated schools, angry teachers, underserved students. There is one simple step that would go a long way toward resolving many of those issues: Make all schools public schools.

That back-to-school chill is in the air, except in Chicago, where 26,000 public school teachers and support staff are on strike and more than 350,000 students are just fucking off all day instead of learning. Even though Chicago is a dull provincial city of little national import, everybody is talking about the strike because Rahm Emanuel is mayor and Obama used to live there. What's the story?

We now take such things for granted, but it's important to remember that for hundreds of years after the fall of Rome, Europe underwent a long age of violence and terror, bereft of the wisdom and knowledge of the ancients, completely ignorant of which colleges were among the 20 Party Schools. We must consider ourselves lucky, then, that we live in an age where every year Princeton Review blesses us with a list of not just the Top 20 Party Schools but also a list of the Top 20 Stone-Cold Sober Campuses — a cornucopia of Schools We Would Never Want to Go To.

It's half-past August, and you know what that means in No Child Left Behind the 7-11 Without Some Book-Learnin' America: it's time for your unruly, ungrateful, and uncomprehending children to put down their childish toys of summers and return to the cold, gleaming socialization boxes in which we warehouse them virtually year-round, for the good of everyone.

It's well known by now that you can spend outrageous sums to get a college degree only to find yourself jobless, through no real fault of your own. But it's also well known that college degrees are a decent bet, statistically speaking. I guess what the latest report is saying is: We ain't promising you the moon, okay?

This WSJ story today on the rising cost of college for the affluent is a cavalcade of shocking statistics about our current student debt crisis: the average price of a four-year college has more than doubled in real terms since 1985; three million households owe $50k or more in student loans, a number that's tripled since 1989, inflation-adjusted. When even the golf course set can't afford college, you know we have a problem.

Since the recession and the cruel pulling-out of the rug from under the notional feet of thousands of fresh-faced law school graduates who'd imagined office-bound lives of leisure in their futures, it's become quite clear to everyone that law school is for suckers. Nobody knows this better than people who run law schools. So what to do? Put themselves out of a job? Haha! No, but seriously, they can offer you a great deal on law school right now.

The funniest (meaning "most horrific and devastating") thing about student loans is that, thanks to some nifty lobbying, you cannot get rid of them in bankruptcy. They just stick around like one of the more bothersome STDs no matter how impoverished you become. But that might change, a bit! Which would be major news for you broke, educated people.

The student loan bubble that threatens to envelop America is a truly remarkable form of penury: your debt ruins you financially, and you may never even reap any benefits from it, thanks to our nation's horrible economy! And now, a second, even more devious peril is becoming clear: you could still be repaying your student loans when it comes time to help your kids get their own student loans.

A vast new survey has found that school in America is far too easy, according to America's students, who are unable to pass tests indicating minimal competence in school.

Congratulations are in order for the for-profit college industry, which won a major court ruling this week—a judge ruled that the Department of Education could not penalize these fake schools just because they routinely destroyed the financial future of their graduates. Here are the outrageous DoE rules, which were struck down as "arbitrary and capricious," via the WSJ:

The whole "big idea" behind having a system of public schools to educate our nation's children is that the public schools are free to attend. We pay taxes, and those taxes pay for schools. The schools are open to all the kids, for free. If you're paying money in order to attend a school, that's called a private school. New system: all schools are private!

Well well well, despite a lot of cheap jokes from certain precincts of the internet where unhappy people dwell, it turns out that people who graduate from college with degrees in easy, fake fields may, in fact, be the smart ones after all.

We're all familiar with the case of the Alleged Hot Lesbian Teachers, who were allegedly caught in a hot classroom having hot lesbian sex (with each other), in the classroom, at the school. Yeah. Very familiar. *Disturbing leer* As journalists—*Disturbing leer*—we're committed to keeping you up to date with Alleged Hot Lesbian Teacher sex developments. Yeah. These things develop, alright. *Disturbing leer*

America is in the midst of a student loan bubble. College costs are increasing, student debt is increasing, job prospects are far from assured, and loan delinquency is on the rise. It's a big problem. The best idea for a solution that I've heard in a long time: let people buy into college students. Like little indentured servants, but not really!

Despite the fact that college education in America is a years-long exercise in dodging crippling debt and financial exploitation with uncertain payoffs, it goes without saying that having a college degree is still preferable to only having a high school diploma, all things being equal. Because while indebted college graduates may be screwed at the moment, at least they get to cut ahead in line when the jobs come around.

The CDC has released its big huge annual report about this nation in which we live (America), and how our health is, here (in America). A special highlight this year is a detailed look at exactly how being poor and/ or uneducated will screw your health. (In addition to your sociopolitical status and fundamental sense of human dignity.) Don't like being disadvantaged? Don't worry, you'll die soon. A rundown:

Elementary school standardized tests are quickly becoming arid wastelands of proper procedure rather than the lush, experimental adult imaginariums the test writers would like them to be.

Though we take a backseat to no one when it comes to mocking various academic fields on the basis of little but our own prejudices, this is ridiculous even by our low standards: famous political theorist Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) (pictured, smugly) led a successful battle this week to get the House of Representatives to zero out funding for the National Science Foundation's most useless field. Political science. Don't want nobody book-larnin' bout no politickin'. Inside Higher Ed reports: