As we race into the second decade of the 21st century we find university and college students everywhere searching for answers to two important questions:

• What are some of the new challenges that are likely to confront the next generation as we prepare them for life after graduation?
• What are the aspirations we are really raising our children for?

What are some of the new challenges that are likely to confront you as you prepare for life after graduation?

As families claw out of this deep recession, many parents find they have less money for private K-12 Christian education or Christian higher education. As a consequence a number of Christian higher education institutions in the US are cutting back on programs and staff.  We are also beginning to see Christian institutions of higher learning merging together to deal not only with the impact of the recession but with declining numbers of people who identify with the church in Britain.

However, colleges in the US are facing another challenge that makes it even harder for students and their parents. Their costs are increasing at an unsustainable rate. Between 1982 and 2007, college costs rose by 439% while median family income only grew by 147% during the same period(National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, 2008, p. 8). In other words, a growing number of not only the working poor but also middle class families are likely to be priced out of Christian college education in the US.

To make matters worse, a surprising number of Christian colleges in the US are in an unsustainable marketing race to the “top”, constructing ever more luxurious dorms and more elaborate food courts. These “upgrades” are further accelerating costs to students and their families as well as significantly increasing school debt for this generation. One major consequence of creating these luxury accommodations is the growing number of graduates who can’t afford to go into missions and non-profit work.

There are a few alternatives outside the US for families who want their young to attend a Christian college but can’t afford the over $40,000 a year price tags. For example, Laidlaw College in New Zealand is about $17,000 US dollars a year plus students would experience a cross-cultural leaning environment. And Northwest University in Kirkland, Washington has just arranged a joint study program for students wanting to pursue a masters degree in Community Development in cooperation with Oxford Center for Missions Studies for roughly $20,000 a year, including living costs. But these cost-effective alternatives are few and far between.

Without economical alternatives, many who are graduating from college today will likely be saddled by more school debt than prior generations. Not only that, many of them will be among the first generation whose lifestyles won’t exceed those of their parents’ generation. This new reality offers an opportunity for a new generation to imagine another reason for being other than pursuing the American dream with a vengeance and trying to work church in on the weekend. It all begins by seeking to answer the second question.

What are the aspirations we are really raising our children for?

I suspect if we took time to research the primary real intent of private and public K-12 and higher education, we would discover remarkably similar answers to this question for both Christian and non-Christian schools. The intent is primarily oriented to preparing the young to fit into the world that is and to embrace the dream of an upwardly mobile lifestyle devoted to economic success.

I believe this dream is not only part of the “hidden curriculum” in many of our educational systems, including Christian education, it is often re-enforced by our homes and churches. But as mentioned above, growing numbers of our young are not going to be able to achieve the economic dream of the endless quest for more.

Gen Y & Z are called “digital natives” and are more hard-wired into all of the new media and social networks than any prior generation. The Kaizer Foundation reported that, in 2005, the young were spending five hours a day on-line, on screen and interacting on social media. Recently they reported that that figure had increased to 6 1/2 hours a day. Little study has been done yet as to what extent the marketers of the global economy are shaping the notions of what is important and of value for Gen Y & Z, but you can be sure they are seeking increasingly sophisticated methods to persuade them.

We know that the marketers of McWorld are keeping book on all of our personal information in a much more comprehensive way than ever before so they can target our weak spots. They seem to have convinced many of the young that McWorld owns the patent rights to cool. These marketers cynically use young peoples’ struggle with self worth and peer acceptance to persuade them to live into the fables they have fashioned about the good life and better future. These merchants of cool continue to come up with new ways to co-opt the young. One of their newest ventures links the endless seduction of “more” to social media. Their new site is called ”Swipely.” It is a site that seeks to influence the young to become shopping exhibitionists.

Here’s how Swipely works. Anytime a person swipes their credit card, their name, purchase and the amount they spent is displayed on the site. “’Turn purchases into conversations’ is the firm’s mantra.”(“Selling becomes sociable,” The Economist, September 11, 2010, p. 76). Is it really a good idea to influence the young to increase their appetite for “more” when many are likely to be able to afford less?

The more important question is who are the “real educators” of the next generation? I find educators, including Christian educators and leaders, to be incredibly naïve about who is really doing “formation” on the values of the next generation.

In fact I would argue that the most important work for Christian educators, youth workers, pastors and parents is to help our young to go back to scripture and help them define a different notion of the good life than the one being trumpeted by the global mall. That process needs to start with the radical teachings of Jesus, who insists the good life of God will never be found in seeking life, but rather in losing life in service to God and others. Once we help our young discover that the good life is found in the life given away, then we need to help them invent whole new ways of living that is more celebrative, more community based, less expensive, more sustainable and more about making a little difference in this troubled decade. One idea is to inspire our young to create websites that use humor to help take the power out of “cool.”

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Tom Sine is a futurist and an author.  He spends a lot of time trying to learn what God is doing through a new generation of innovators.  His latest book is The New Conspirators. He works with Mustard Seed Associates which he founded with his wife Christine http://msainfo.org

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