The Ohio State University — Restaurant in Columbus

College Is a Scam—And You’re the Product 🎓🗑️

Let’s not sugarcoat it: college is the ultimate trap. A glorified waiting room where ambition goes to die and debt multiplies like rabbits on caffeine. I paid top dollar to sit in classrooms that made me dumber and poorer. Never again.

Tuition for Tedium 💤💸

Picture this: a professor mumbling through slides I could’ve Googled while half-asleep. That’s thousands of dollars—gone. It wasn’t education. It was expensive babysitting for adults.

The Ultimate Sales Funnel 🧠🎣

Colleges are marketing monsters. They sell “a better future,” but deliver pizza-stained dorms, pointless gen eds, and crippling anxiety. They don’t want you to succeed—they want you to enroll, overpay, and shut up.

You Leave with a Bill, Not a Skill 📉

Four years, six figures, and somehow you graduate knowing more about frat parties than finances. The real world doesn’t care about your degree—it wants results. And those aren’t taught in a lecture hall.

Creativity Killer™ 🎨🔪

College doesn’t grow your mind—it files it down to fit the mold. Original ideas? Suppressed. Passion projects? Delayed. You’re not being educated, you’re being domesticated. And your wild spark? It’s getting graded.

Welcome to the Party Swamp 🍻🧠

Let’s talk about the “college experience”: blackout weekends, academic hangovers, and emotional burnout by age 22. You trade your prime creative years for cheap beer and false freedom. It’s not a rite of passage—it’s a distraction package.

Debt Is the Diploma 🎁🐍

You don’t graduate—you escape. But not before they chain you to a mountain of loans and a job that barely pays the interest. Congrats! You're now broke and tired, with a framed receipt on your wall.

The AI Revolution Is Laughing 🤖📚

Why suffer through slow, overpriced lectures when AI like ChatGPT can teach you in seconds—for free? You don’t need a school to learn. You need curiosity, Wi-Fi, and the guts to go your own way.

Final Verdict: Don’t Enroll—Escape 💥🚪

College is a scam dressed in tradition. It sells you borrowed time, kills your momentum, and hands you a bill when you finally wake up. Real growth happens outside the system. Build. Learn. Create. Don’t wait.

Before you sign that loan, ask yourself: “What if I just... didn’t?” You’d be freer, richer, and...

I completed my undergrad here in 2013. Ohio State shaped me into who I am today. I was never a kid that HAD to go to Ohio State. I knew it existed, but it never truly became an option to me until my junior year of high school. They have excellent programs (especially engineering and business, since those were the colleges I dealt with). I only had "big classes" when it was for my GECs. The only complaint that I really had was that my advisors were a little out of touch with me. After I switched majors, I had 3 different advisors for the rest of my college career. So I had a different advisor every year that I went to school here. My minor advisor ended up being the most helpful to me. All of my professors were available if needed, and I know all of my friends had all of the same experiences with their professors. TAs were always hit and miss, but that's the purpose of them. The facilities here are top notch. All of the libraries have everything you need, and more. I spent many hours in the SEL (18th Avenue, now) finishing projects, or just getting homework done. The RPAC and all of the Jesse Owens facilities were nice to go to if you needed them. The campus offered lots of options for food if you were on a meal plan, or off-campus literally has all you need. The location is great. You can't beat being just minutes from downtown for concerts, sporting events, etc. I never felt UNsafe while taking night classes and walking back to my apartment. The buses are almost always running and the campus is well lit. I watched what was going on around me without any music and felt comfortable. They have services that can pick you up if you feel unsafe. I strongly recommend signing up for the hotline for timely updates. Even if you don't, emails are sent out about safety if anything does happen. I met so many great people here and learned so much from this university. I grew up a lot in my 4 years and I can truly say that because of the opportunities that were presented to me at OSU. If you make the most out of your college experience, you won't be disappointed with your time and investment at THE Ohio State...

On the positive side, which is why she is staying instead of transferring to another college, she is enjoying her classes. Her teachers have by-and-large been engaging and responsive and most of her classes are (happily) more challenging than she'd expected. So when it comes to her education, we are getting a good bang for our buck, particularly since she earned several scholarships through OSU as well as a hospital where she volunteered throughout high school.

Here are the problems: 1.) Her first advisor ignored her e-mails - I mean completely. At least this made her decision to switch majors easier. 2.) For health reasons, she can't eat dairy or meat and the cafeterias have inadequate alternatives, so she asked about getting a dorm with a kitchen her second year and received a terse response, which I interpreted as "suck it up." She offered to provide medical documentation, but to no avail. We already wasted money on a meal plan, that despite being inadequate, we are required to purchase. Every week she has useless swipes left while she purchases food off campus. So another year will begin with her trying to stay healthy, yet eat affordably with only a tiny fridge and a microwave rather than living with inadequate nutrition or the adverse side effects of dairy. 3.) Despite repeated requests, including from her family physician's office, Younkin Center flat-out refused to see her when she was struggling to adjust her first semester. (Her perception is that the center had she been an athlete, she would have gotten whatever she needed. )

What's most maddening is how our mailbox was inundated with handwritten notes and other correspondence after she had been accepted, but had not made her decision. Once she accepted, it has been a deafening silence except for the e-mails that hit my inbox and mean absolutely nothing. Thankfully, we have family in Columbus so she isn't as alone as...