The youth of this country need to embrace hard work and sacrifice in order to return this country to its former glory. Yes, this applies to you, too.

In his recent address to Congress, President Barack Obama said Americans need to push themselves in their pursuit of higher education. He also said having a high school education isn’t enough anymore. Our generation needs to get its act together and become the new “Greatest Generation.”

However, I am not holding my breath waiting for Generation Y to rise to the challenge. We are lazy. We are self-absorbed. And to top it off, we just aren’t that bright. Don’t believe me? Next time you’re in class, look around – really look around – and understand these are the future leaders of America.

For every diligent student who gives serious attention to improving his or herself, there are too many others who come to class looking to either hook up or sponge off of someone else’s efforts.

I’m done with telling the Yaz-popping sperm bank who sleeps in a tanning bed what page we are on. The next tool with a flat-billed hat and Ecko shirt who asks me what the professor just said is getting told to go have sex with himself.

What’s most infuriating in all of this is that there is no excuse for it. We are blessed with the opportunity to have access to an affordable education. For those of you who are outraged about my reference to our education being “affordable,” take a deep breath and then a handful of seconds to look at what it costs to go to a state college anywhere else in the country. SUNY New Paltz, a highly respected state college in New York, offers students its services for roughly $16,000 a year, according to a New York Times article from last week. By the way, the article was touting SUNY New Paltz for being a bargain.

That’s what makes our squandering of resources more heartbreaking than anything. Taxes help fund our university. We waste taxpayer money for every day we are not in class or giving it our full effort. We’re no better than the jackasses in the Capitol who can’t pass a budget on time.

Thomas Knutson has been a communications professor at Sacramento State for more than three decades. He prepares his students for life after college through his no-nonsense approach.

“I don’t adapt to irresponsibility,” Knutson said.

Neither does the real world.

I am not pretending like I haven’t missed my share of classes during my six semesters here. It’s happened more times than I care to admit. But I’m honest with myself. If I hadn’t missed so many classes, I wouldn’t have taken more than 10 semesters to graduate from college.

James Hernandez has been a criminal justice professor at Sac State since 1974. He said that what frustrates him most about students’ efforts, or lack thereof, is all of those who would “kill to have the opportunity.”

Hernandez said students are generally the same now as they were in the 1970s. He said it’s still the “same group of complainers and whiners.”

Hernandez, you took the words right out of my mouth.

Jordan Guinn can be reached at [email protected]