The college scam - Maggie's Farm: "Everybody should go to college."  There's an old Bloom County cartoon in which somebody is buying an engagement ring and asks: "Who decided that it was a necessity to get a shiny rock before you can get married?" and the jeweler declares "Guilty!"  The colleges have subtly advanced this elitist trope that the only way to get ahead is to go to college.  It is empirically untrue and the idea is filling the coffers of for-profit schools like the University of Phoenix.  As Mike Rowe or John Ratzenberger would advise: learn a trade.