http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2012/05/julias-circle-of-life.html

Within 24 hours of birth, Julia receives a vaccine against hepatitis B (a disease transmitted by contaminated needles and sexual intercourse) as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and mandated by most states. This vaccination is worse than worthless because infants cannot make antibodies until they are at least two months old. (That’s why no other vaccines are given to newborns.) It’s quite likely that this vaccination will increase the risk of acquiring hepatitis B later in life because vaccine antigens present while the immune system is developing are treated as “self” and will never trigger an immune response.

Ages 6-17: Julia goes to public schools that perform frequent standardized testing in order to qualify for funds from the federal and state governments. The huge list of covered topics on these standardized tests dominate curriculum development despite the fact that many of those topics are absurd or age-inappropriate. Teachers all teach to these tests to help the school get more funding and to qualify for pay increases. Julia’s public school education sucks, but it gives her the piece of paper that lets her go on to college.

Ages 18-22: Julia attends a college that is incredibly expensive because demand is high and the federal government subsidizes student loans. The curriculum has been dumbed-down to reduce failure rates. (Despite the dumbing-down, half of college students fail to get a bachelors degree.) Julia acquires another piece of paper while acquiring no useful skills and a little knowledge of Java programming. She did acquire $120,000 in debt.

Age 23: When she starts her job as a web designer, the combination of a glut of recent grads plus her lack of experience result in low pay. Social Security and Medicare deductions now total 20% of gross pay. Despite sharing a small apartment and taking a (government subsidized) bus to work, she can barely make ends meet. Even with reduced interest rates, the student loan payments suck down a big chunk of her take-home pay. She realizes that if she had dropped out of high school at 16 and gotten a job as a waitress, she would be much better off financially.