I have an opinion

Education in modern society is as much for reasons of curiosity as it is for self advancement. You may educate yourself because you are interested and want to KNOW, but the state educates you so that you can function more efficiently within society and thus more easily advance yourself.
Right now in my life I am going to school for a variety of reasons, but three stand out: I am really, really interested and I feel that my chances of both changing the world for the better and making money for myself increase the more I know. The more awards/degrees I hold the more other members of our society will recognize my claim to an opinion as legitimate and hopefully they will respect my opinion. I have opinions about the way things should be and I want people to listen to them, so I need to not only sound like I know what I'm talking about but I need to be able to point to my past and say: look, look at all the things I've dealt with and learned from, surely I know what I'm talking about. This is why I am educating myself. Yeah.