Students and the "Sinking Ship"

According to an analysis by the Carnegie Council on Policy Studies in Higher Education, there has been a fundamental change in the goals of college students in the United States. Instead of putting the priority on human values and goals, as students generally did a decade ago, “learn the right thing and earn a lot of money” seems to be today’s philosophy. Why? “There is a sense among today’s undergraduates that they are passengers on a sinking ship, a Titanic if you will, called the United States or the world,” said the study. “There is a growing belief among college students that, if they are doomed to ride on the Titanic, they ought at least to make the trip as pleasant—make that as lavish—as possible and go first class, for they assume there is nothing better.”
Even the apostle Paul acknowledged that such a view of life is to be expected if one has no hope: “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we are to die.” But this was to be expected, he said, only “if the dead are not to be raised up.” On the other hand, since those with faith realize that everlasting life in happiness is possible for both the living and the dead, they take the wise course recommended by Paul. He urged “those making use of the world” to be “as those not using it to the full.”—1 Cor. 7:29-31; 15:29-32; John 17:3.