The lack of crispness comes significantly from a societal change in what's valued: a replacement of bold individual initiative with collaboration, consensus, teamwork etc. All that team-involved decision-making often leads to tepid solutions and a slow-moving organization.

When you're going to school primarily for career purposes, it's more important to focus on which program is best for you. In addition, your success at college depends far more on what you do at the college than at which college you do it: Choosing the right program, then the right advisor, the right courses, the right term papers, the right co-curricular activities, the right fieldwork, the right internships. You can make those choices at any college.

Education isn't a magic pill. There is no magic pill. But the closest we have is practical expertise and relentless drive.

If you don't know what career you'd change to, I've come to believe in starting with your values. What do you care most about: producing a new product, a cause, health, something unpopular but important, whatever. Next, get expertise in that, perhaps not at State U let alone private U but at You U: self-study, articles,, webinars, volunteering, etc. Then use your network rather than answering ads to land a launchpad job in that career.

Essayists write at a length that enables them, within a year, to explore a number of topics, whereas in a book, they'll likely only get to address one.

Only someone who already knows and likes you is likely to give you a good job with modest relevant experience.

Liberalism's key principle is to redistribute wealth from the haves to the have nots. That takes money from the entities with the greatest potential to improve society (for example, corporations that create jobs, invent life-saving medicines, etc.) and redistributes it to the people, whom on average, will never contribute more to society than to hold a menial job.