Eighty Thousand Dollars and 4 Years but not Friday Night?

I don’t understand kids who are willing to shell out eighty thousand ++ dollars and spend at least four years of their life at university but are unwilling to put in the work necessary to do well. The relative reward/effort ratio will never be higher. Effort today translates directly into grades and a positive impression on professors. These grades and recommendations can be traded directly for three things: a high paying summer job and/or a new graduate position at a good company and/or a position in a good graduate school. The benefits of skipping your favourite TV show or not drinking on the weekend are astounding and could easily change the course that your life takes.

So why are there so many people that refuse to put this effort it? I think the problem is concentrated on those that are here on their parent’s dime. Those individuals are not really spending eighty thousand dollars; they are having eighty thousand given to them, and therefore have no motivation to make that money work for them, to maximize their utility. Just as they don’t appreciate the value of having their tuition, rent, books, food, entertainment paid for them now, they don’t consider a life in which their own efforts dictate their consumption. These individuals are cognitively trained to rely on their parent’s cheque books to satisfy their wants. 200 bucks a week for food and beer? Check! A new TV? Check! Steak or Salmon for dinner every night? Check! They have everything they want, why work for more?

I argue that if these individuals had to pay for at least a few of their own expenses they would be more motivated in their studies so they could realise perks that make their life comfortable. Individuals that are incapable of developing their own work ethic and discipline must be shown that there is a correlation between effort and consumption if they are ever to truly be motivated. Otherwise, they will continue to waste the gift that was given to them and spit in the face of those kids that would work 16 hours a day, 7 days a week but cannot afford to be here.