People of my age who went to college, go into college, you know

The words of Michael Moore—“People of my age who went to college, go into college, you know what it cost back then? Nothing or next to nothing. At the most, you had to work at Dairy Queen during the summer and that would pay for your college education.”—are not merely a complaint about the price of schooling; they are a lament for a world that has lost its sense of fairness, its covenant between generations. In his voice, there is both nostalgia and warning—a remembrance of a time when education was a right, not a privilege, and when the path to knowledge was open to all who were willing to work for it. Moore speaks not only of dollars and cents, but of the moral economy that once bound society together: the belief that effort should be rewarded, that the young should not be shackled by debt before they even begin their journey through life.

When he recalls that once “a summer job at Dairy Queen” could pay for college, he is invoking a vision of balance—a time when labor and learning stood in harmony. Work was not yet a chain but a bridge, connecting ambition to opportunity. The student of his generation might have to sweat and strive, but the reward was attainable; a few months of toil could purchase years of enlightenment. This was a social contract built on trust—a belief that the fruits of industry should be shared, and that education, the seed of progress, should not be locked away behind gates of gold. Moore’s words echo like the voice of a prophet from an older, gentler age, reminding us how far we have drifted from that harmony.

The origin of this truth lies in the mid-twentieth century, in an era when nations emerging from the fires of war turned their strength toward reconstruction and renewal. In America and across much of the Western world, public universities flourished, tuition was low, and the dream of higher education was within reach of nearly every family. Governments saw education not as a commodity, but as a public good—a force to lift entire communities. The post-war generation was taught that knowledge was power, and that this power belonged to the people. Yet as the decades passed, the market crept into the temple of learning, and the price of wisdom began to rise. The sacred flame of education, once shared freely, became a business transaction.

Consider the story of the ancient Library of Alexandria, that temple of human knowledge where scholars from every corner of the known world gathered to study, to teach, and to dream. It stood as a beacon of collective learning—its scrolls, its halls, its scholars all united by the pursuit of truth. When that library burned, it was not only books that were lost, but the faith that knowledge belongs to all. In the same way, Moore’s lament is not only about money—it is about the slow burning of our modern libraries, the extinguishing of access, the turning of young minds away from learning because the price of the gate is too high. The flame of curiosity, once meant to light the world, now flickers beneath the burden of debt.

Moore’s tone carries both anger and compassion, for he speaks as one who has witnessed the transformation of a promise into a prison. In his eyes, the young of today labor twice and earn half; they study not in hope, but in fear—fear of loans, of poverty, of never catching up. The burden of debt, he implies, is more than financial—it is spiritual. It teaches resignation instead of courage, obedience instead of vision. When education becomes a transaction, the soul of society begins to fade, for true learning requires freedom—the freedom to think, to question, to dream beyond profit.

The lesson in his words, then, is not simply to mourn what is lost, but to reclaim what was once sacred. A society that denies its youth affordable education denies its own future. For education is not a luxury to be sold to the highest bidder; it is the very breath of civilization. When a farmer tills the soil, he invests in tomorrow’s harvest. When a teacher lights a child’s mind, she invests in tomorrow’s humanity. To make that investment costly is to poison the roots of the tree before it bears fruit. Moore’s reminder is a call to reawaken the ethic of care—to remember that progress without compassion is decay.

And so, to the listener, let this truth settle in your heart: the strength of a nation is not measured by its wealth, but by its willingness to educate its people. If you have knowledge, share it. If you have power, use it to open the gates for others. Speak against systems that turn learning into debt, that weigh down the dreams of the young before they take flight. Let us rebuild a world where work and learning once again stand in harmony—where a summer of labor can buy not despair, but hope.

For as Michael Moore reminds us, education is not a privilege of the few—it is the inheritance of all. And if we lose that inheritance, if we let the pursuit of profit consume the pursuit of wisdom, we shall wake one day to find ourselves rich in gold but poor in understanding, a generation that sold its birthright for the price of tuition. Let us, then, be wiser than that—let us restore learning to its rightful place as the foundation of freedom and the light of the human spirit.