Part 3 of 3 College tuition hurts those who need higher education the most — lower-income students. Back in your parents’ era, that may not have been much of a problem, thanks to a growing middle class. But in America today, the middle class is disappearing, leaving more of us than ever facing impossible future tuition costs for our children.The high cost of college tuition has become the most expensive outlay a family faces after buying a home. Most graduates face years of paying off education loans. Students who graduated last year will carry an average of $25,250 in debt, a 5 percent increase over the year before. It was the first year when student debt surpassed credit card debt in this country. Why do we do it?Most studies agree that the marginal value of a year of college education adds around 6 to 10 percent to annual income, but the cost versus the benefits are starting to unravel. College grads are facing an economy of slow growth with high unemployment where jobs are at a premium and salaries are going down, not up.It is a determined student, especially in poorer families, who can ignore the messages he receives from as early as the eighth grade. “College is just too expensive. We can’t afford to send you.”That was the message I received from my folks. Neither of my parents graduated high school.I opted to join the Marine Corps, fight in Vietnam and four years later attend college on the GI Bill. Today, roughly 100,000 men and women follow that route every year and attend college for free. I believe college should be free for all Americans because college is to today’s generation what high school was to my parents’ generation.But the most vexing part of paying for a college education today is the product itself. Aside from acting as a convenient (though expensive) job screen for potential employers, does a college education prepare students for the working world? A growing consensus among educators argues no. Information changes at lightning speed and cutting-edge knowledge becomes obsolete in less than a year. In that kind of environment I believe our students should be focused on one purpose: the need to “learn how to learn.” I agree with Walt Kelley (and others) who advocates the same thing in his book “Common Sense, a New Conversation about Public Education.”Think about it. A college graduate’s learning curve begins the moment of entering the workplace. It doesn’t matter whether you join a high-tech startup, an investment bank on Wall Street or service autos at a garage: There is a wealth of new knowledge you must master in order to succeed. And it never ends!In my own career (and I’m sure in yours as well) I am constantly required to learn and master new subject matter, many times on a daily basis. Over many years, I have acquired a skill set that allows me to digest even the most complex data, integrate it into my knowledge base and communicate it to you, the reader, in terms that you find comprehensible.I have found that most successful individuals I know have acquired these same fundamental educational skills and use them throughout their careers. As applied to our educational system, I believe that beginning in elementary school, students should be taught the foundations of learning how to learn. Reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, music, art, physical fitness and civil service are the fundamental building blocks that begin that process. In our high schools this foundation of knowledge should be expanded. Foreign language, history, economics, ethics, logic (among others) should be mastered, integrated and applied to daily life. By the time one reaches college, the student will have mastered an arsenal of learning tools that can be applied to any and all subjects.So why pay anything for a product that doesn’t deliver the goods? Sure, college should be free but it goes beyond that. What is the point of acquiring an expertise and storing tons of information that will be obsolete in a year? I believe the goal of higher education in this country should be to produce citizens who can think for themselves, understand the difference between rhetoric and fact, create and challenge both themselves and their communities and as a result get this country and its future back on track. Bill Schmick lives in Hillsdale, N.Y. He is registered as an investment advisor representative with Berkshire Money Management. Bill’s forecasts and opinions are purely his own. None of the information presented here should be construed as an endorsement of BMM or a solicitation to become a client of BMM. Direct inquires to Bill@afewdollarsmore.com.
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Meg Sher, executive director of the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village.
“I was a library kid. I walked to the library after school,” she said.
For Sher, the library is as much about the people as it about the books.
“Part of the job I love so much is that running the library is such a community,” she said.
She treasures the relationships she has built, whether recommending books, celebrating accomplishments or helping patrons through difficult times.
“I am thankful that our community is so supportive of the library, unlike what is happening in some other places where librarians are villainized,” Sher said.
Sher takes pride in the Hunt Library’s reputation for being “open and welcoming to everyone. People come in and see things and get pulled into things they weren’t expecting. Our library is seen as a positive force.”
Sher came to Falls Village after being awarded a fellowship at Adamah Farm, then a program of the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center. She worked at pickling, in the greenhouse and later in the development office. She also worked as a nanny.
At the same time, “I was in the library all the time,” she recalled. “I’m a voracious reader. The library is where I met a lot of my first friends in Falls Village.”
She became assistant librarian at Hunt and worked in that position for almost a decade before becoming the executive director four years ago.
Meg Sher, executive director of the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village.L. Tomaino
Sher met her husband, Adam, while working at Adamah. They had their wedding there in 2012. He now emcees many events which she co-organizes with the Falls Village Recreation Commission.
Sher and her family live near the library.
“It’s an easy commute,” she said with a smile. “My kids run back and forth. I can go home to walk the dog if I need to.”
“My kids have grown up here.” Her oldest son, Eli, “loves volunteering. He helps with Augustfest and often helps set up chairs for ArtWall gatherings.” Her younger son, Noah, is often at events and was eager to taste cookies at last year’s holiday cookie swap.
When she is not at the library, Sher likes to hike with her family. Bella, their Portuguese water dog, often accompanies them.
Sher enjoys seeking out people to offer events at the library.
“I do a lot of different community programming. It is one of my favorite parts of the job.”
Augustfest, featuring food, music and an auction, is the library’s biggest fundraiser.
“This summer we had a record 152 attendees, which was pretty incredible.”
Yonah Sadeh, a filmmaker from Falls Village, inaugurated the VideoWall this year, Sher explained.
“I’ve known Yonah since he was two. It’s wonderful to work with him as an adult.”
The VideoWall complements the library’s ArtWall, which showcases a new artist each month. Sher praised the ArtWall committee for its work and highlighted December’s popular “12x12 Show,” featuring works by local artists, each measuring 12 by 12 inches and priced at $150.
Sher added that some of the artists who exhibit at the ArtWall offer workshops to students at Kellogg School, next door to the library. In September, artist Danielle Mailer worked with the children. Vincent Inconiglios taught a class last November.
Being next to the school, said Sher, is a great advantage.
“Kids are coming after school, to see friends, work on projects, find a great book. Kids that love the library end up using the library as grownups.”
This past year, in partnership with Adamah, the library and school created a garden, with excess produce made available at The Center on Main.
This year is Sher’s second year participating in the Troutbeck Symposium in Amenia with James King, director of the library at Salisbury School. The Troutbeck Symposium is “a gathering of a year of student historical inquiry across the region” in which students “uncover stories that have been overlooked, forgotten, or never recorded.”
Last year, Sher and King began a project with a group of students researching Irish immigrants in Falls Village, exploring ancestry and creating small magazines about their findings.
They continued this year, visiting St. Patrick’s Catholic Cemetery on Dublin Road, cleaning seven gravestones and even righting one with the help of stonemason and gravestone restoration expert Karl Munson. Paul Kozeazny, a representative of the Catholic archdiocese, helped secure access to the site.
A film documenting their activities will be shown at the symposium in spring 2027.
A full schedule of programs and events, ranging from tech help to ceramic mug-making, can be found on the library’s website.
Despite spending her days surrounded by books, and a busy schedule of programming, Sher still loves to settle in with a book at home.
For more information on library programs and events, visit huntlibrary.org
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Touré was born in northern Mali in 1981. His father, the renowned guitarist Ali Farka Touré, came from a family of soldiers and wanted his son to join the army. The younger Touré studied drums and the calabash and practiced guitar in secret. He earned his father’s blessing to pursue music shortly before Ali died in 2006, and they played two tracks together on Vieux’s debut album.
Touré is known for his deft, polyrhythmic playing, and his songs grow out of riffs that repeat and layer to hypnotic effect. He draws on rock, blues, Latin music and various African traditions. This distinctive blend builds on his father’s work adapting the sonic traditions of Mali’s arid north to the guitar.
Vieux’s album “Mon Pays” (“My Country,” 2013) honored Mali’s culture after Tuareg separatists and extremist groups seized the north in 2012. “Samba” (2017) was recorded before about 50 listeners in Woodstock, New York. In 2022 came “Les Racines” (“The Roots”), a return to his father’s desert blues, and “Ali,” on which he and the trio Khruangbin reworked eight of the elder Touré’s songs.
Touré leads the Ali Farka Touré Foundation, which focuses on cultural and educational work in Mali. Around the anniversary of Ali’s death, it holds a festival in Bamako, Mali’s capital. Bamako has been under blockade for much of the past year, besieged by JNIM, an al-Qaeda affiliate. Against this backdrop, Touré continues to carry the music of Mali to audiences abroad.
At the Nov. 5 concert, Touré’s desert blues will share the bill with Gnawa, the music LanGus plays, which developed in Morocco among West Africans who were brought north across the desert as enslaved people. Gnawa is religious music traditionally performed at all-night healing ceremonies called lila, intended to carry participants into trance.
Samir LanGusProvided
LanGus was born and raised outside Agadir, Morocco, and began learning Gnawa from its masters at age 8. He plays the sintir, a three-stringed bass lute made of wood and camel skin. The player strikes a low string with the thumb to create a deep, resonant pulse. Iron castanets clatter over the sintir’s bass line, and vocalists trade call-and-response refrains.
LanGus infuses the tradition with jazz and improvisation. In New York, he founded the ensemble Innov Gnawa. His first solo album, “Gnawa Love,” came out in February.
Touré and LanGus’s Nov. 5 concert is one of the last public events at Race Brook Lodge, which is for sale and ended full-service operations at the end of 2025. The lodge’s final scheduled event, on Nov. 6, is an evening of Rumi’s poetry with translator and vocalist Haleh Liza Gafori, cellist Isabel Castellvi and ceremonial bard James Bird.
For tickets, visit rblodge.com.
James FitzGerald is a student at Yale Law School, where he focuses on ecological restoration and international environmental cooperation. He splits his time between Lakeville and New Haven.
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