El Jornada del Muerto is a hundred-mile stretch of the Camino Real, which once ran from Mexico City to the northernmost region of the Spanish colonial empire.
There is no water on this stretch of the Camino, no livestock forage, and no firewood. Literally, the Jornada is the “route of the dead man.”
Nevertheless, travelers in the 17th and 18th centuries could survive the Jornada if they prepared by taking plenty of water, watering their horses just before embarking, and traveling quickly over this desert road.
Many young people believe their college years will be an exciting journey of self-discovery–a journey that leads to a good job and a middle-class life. But people who leave college without a diploma may find that they would have been better off financially if they had not gone to college at all. As Professor Phillip Levine put it, college dropouts “made an investment that had no return.”
Not surprisingly, non-completers have high student-loan default rates–three times higher than individuals who graduate.
People who drop out of college and find themselves unable to make monthly payments on their student loans will see their indebtedness double, triple, and even quadruple as the years go by and interest accumulates on their unpaid loans.
In my view, too many young people look upon their college years as a golden time of unbridled freedom, casual sex, and binge drinking. That is a mistake.
Instead, they should understand their college years as a trip through the Jornada del Muerto. If they take out too many student loans and drop out without a diploma, they may find that their postsecondary experience was not the fun adventure they anticipated. Instead, it was a financial disaster.
El Jornada del Muerto: Don’t take a dead man’s route through college.
