Wrangling a Tangle of Red

In the red. Seeing red. Wearing red. Makeup aside, it seems that we're all cloaked in a tangle of red tape. The problem is, it's so sticky, how do you cut your way out of it?

Case in point: There are countless ads on Facebook and your Internet provider of choice that urge moms among others to go back to school; spam email offers for online universities; enticements to get your degree or continue your education as a productive option to fill the void during this time of high unemployment. 

Ahh, but it isn't as easy as they make it sound. My aforementioned friend Abby decided to finish getting her Ph.D. to solidify the move from adjunct to full time professor at the institution where she teaches. But at New York University, where she accrued her credits in previous years, she was told they were no longer good and she would have to start all over again.

"It's not like milk!" she shrieked, incredulous. "Learning doesn't expire!" Yet, try as she might, she can't get through the tangle of inexplicable "policy" to find a logical, rational protocol or person that will allow for any forward motion through the beaurocracy.

I myself have tried over repeated weeks, also at NYU absurdly enough, to take a continuing education course. After reassurances over the phone that I could come down to the office and initiate the payment process, I am repeatedly rejected once there because I don't have a full time job.

Does anyone at this institute of "higher learning" not see the irony here? If I had a full time job, yes, I might be able to pay in full all at once. But would I be able to take off a leisurely Thursday afternoon to explore the intricacies of Elizabethan knot gardens or wattle-and-daub architecture? Highly doubtful.

I finally went directly to the professor to tell her about my dilemma. She, being a  rational human being, was suitably dumbfounded, as was I.  

My friend Peter roared with laughter. "You're probably the only person to ever gate crash a class on Tudor antiquities," he said. It is funny. But also ridiculous.

On the one hand, we have President Obama signing an Educate to Innovate initiative, not to mention an initiative to support women and girls.

We have ads and articles from all sides encouraging further education, and yet institutions rejecting eager and willing participants.

Perhaps there's a pervasive prejudice against the un- or underemployed, who actually constitute a rather substantial percentage of the population at this point. And who are the only people right now ostensibly with the time to avail themselves of these opportunities. Anyone who has a job is too afraid of losing it to ask to go to the bathroom much less ask for half a day off.

Anyone else out there with a desire to learn, confounded by the illogical? Or caught in a tangle of red tape of another sort? Let's hear about it.