What is happening in Afghanistan, where more women are attending school, is a wonderful trend to observe, especially given the shameful lack of freedom endured by women in that country. And yet, more women seeking further education is also a major trend in other countries, including the United States. For example, according the National Center for Educational Statistics, the percent of women seeking post-baccalaureate decrees in 1976 was 42.7 percent, compared to 57.3 percent for men. The figure for 2010 is projected to be 58 percent for women and 42% for men --which is a reversal of the 1976 figures. The figures projected out to 2019 predict that female will be 60.6 percent and 39.4 percent male. Those figures are even more skewed in other specific states where the percent of women seeking college degrees is much higher. In Alaska for example, women make up over 78% of the college student enrollment, especially in rural Alaska. Other countries are showing evidence of similar trends.

Some of men obviously see this as a threat to their “status,” while others see this trend as Hope: an affirmation that human life might survive on this small planet-- As the hardest working, most humane, and most intelligent gender of our species will become the leaders who will lead us all through the challenges of our increasingly complex, rapidly morphing, and shrinking global society.

In the last 8 years Higher Education in the US has also left a whole generation as indentured servants, those who had to borrow against their future, like those who immigrated to America and had to work off their passage by being a servant for years to the "owner" who paid their fare.

The federal government under the Bush Administration created and expanded the student loan program, allowing private banks to participate with federal loan backing. Within two years scandals rocked the higher education student loan directors as banks and other lenders paid for free trips for university/college Directors of Student Loans to place their banks names first on the online lists of lenders.

At the same time, private, for-profit (and online) universities and colleges, which were created with the development of the Internet (1994), also saw a ready source of students/revenue/profit via student loans. Getting students verified as eligible for student loans was and is the first priority in the recruitment process. The federal government had promulgated regulations that made it illegal for colleges/universities to pay recruiters based on number of students recruited, because the temptation to not provide complete disclosure of loan details would be too great. But the student loan gold rush over-ran the country.

The University of Phoenix was sued in 2003 and paid the US Department of Education $9.8 million in 2004 “to resolve administrative claims that it was paying improper incentive compensation to its recruiters.” Recruiters were being paid incentives (which is illegal) for the number of students they enrolled. A settlement of $78.5 million is being sought to settle the claims against the University of Phoenix.

A snapshot of the reality the “cost” of higher education in the US in the last 10 years leaves more disturbing images and consequences. Here are a few salient points:

• American students have borrowed over $150 billion dollars from 2004-2009. That will be a lot more than $150 billion dollars out of the US consumer economy over the next 20 years.
• Many “students” are borrowing money to live on in these financially challenging times, and are not really going to school.
• Many have “educations” from for-profit technical schools that provide little or no real education for getting a job, especially in a low employment era… but they still have the student loans to pay.
• Students have sued for-profit “colleges/institutions” claiming their “education” did not qualify them to get the jobs the institutions claimed, have not prevailed. In addition, suits against accrediting bodies who accredit institutions for various programs and fields have also not prevailed. The system has left the most vulnerable, the less educated/informed, unprotected in an era of “buyer-beware” in higher education.
• When the federal loan program was expanded under the Bush Administration in 2005 the law also made it illegal for student loan indebtedness to be relieved by bankruptcy. “Students” cannot seek bankruptcy relief from student loan indebtedness, they can also have their social security garnished for payment.
• At the same time salaries for university/college presidents has accelerated. The annual salary of over 30 private college presidents exceeds $1 Million dollars per year. Presidential salaries of public colleges and universities range from more than $300,000 to several million per year. The President of Kaplan (a for-profit university) last year was over $30 million dollars.

In the last two years of the 19th century over 60,000 men climbed the Chilcoot pass in Alaska to get to the Gold Rush in the Yukon Territory. Only a very minute percentage returned with gold. In our current era of our Education Gold Rush, a much larger percentage will return with the gold that their education has provided for their passage, but they will be paying a good percentage of that wealth each month to those who created the financial gold rush that paid for their passage.