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A lot of people choose to come to Happy Valley for an education, either at Utah Valley State College or Brigham Young University. Some want to gain practical experience and finish with a degree that will help them in the real world. Some are attracted by the opportunity to couple skiing or snowboarding with their college experience. Some come because they’ve been convinced since a young age they actually bleed blue and gold and Satan will eat their babies if they go to college anywhere else.

But some come to get married.

I can only imagine what fantasy world these women have created in their minds – with pretty flowers everywhere and beautiful music playing in the background, no doubt – when they are motivated to attend an institution of higher learning solely to get their “MRS” degree.

And while they daydream of white steeds and of scenes from The Notebook, the cerebral narrator of this muse says, “Four years of books: Five-thousand dollars. Four years of tuition: Fifteen-thousand dollars. Four years of room and board: Twenty-thousand dollars. Meeting your eternal companion: It’s like forty-thousand dollars! Just add it up!”

It turns out their narrator isn’t a hopeless romantic. He’s a pragmatist. He’s not going to say, “Priceless.” Not only would that have been lacking in originality – and possibly plagiaristic – it wouldn’t have been true. That ring on your finger may have cost a lot of money, but getting that ring on your finger cost much, much more.

So, is this a good investment? Should men and women – let’s be honest, it’s not just the ladies who come here to get married – feel the thousands of dollars they spend on schooling is worth it if they’re just looking to find a spouse?

The majority of single people in the greater Provo/Orem area want to get married. The high concentration of people with similar beliefs, morals and standards is an added bonus to living in ProvOrem. So it should work out. But it doesn’t. Why not? As always, the problem lies with the men.

A woman arrives, reciting “Ring by spring or your money back” in her mind, but finds the guys in ProvOrem to be substandard. Realizing the pickings are slim, she becomes a wonderfully ambitious woman, working toward a degree. This – for some reason I have yet to understand – dissolves any remaining desire for said guys to date her. I guess there’s something unappealing about a woman with drive. After four years of a few lame dates and a lot of lame guys, she ends up doing the exact opposite of what she intended, graduating with a degree and no husband.

Having graduated with no spousal prospects and no job prospects since she majored in Marriage, Family and Human Development or Dance or something (seriously, you might as well major in Waiting In Soup Kitchen Lines because that’s what you’ll be doing the rest of your life with a degree like that) her only option is to pursue more education.

And who’s going to marry a girl working on her master’s or a Ph.D.?

I will. The only reason I came here was to get married, and if she can be the one who brings home the bacon instead of me, even better.

Men, if you’re really here to get married, put forth the effort. If you meet a girl and she’s just here for her “MRS” degree, then you can be that special someone to end her formal education. If you meet a girl and she’s for an academic degree, then support her in that. There’s nothing wrong with a woman wanting to leave ProvOrem with a degree and a husband.

But women, if you don’t want a formal education, couldn’t care less about a degree, and hate the college experience, don’t go to college. If you do, you will have the most expensive wedding announcements ever.

That is all.

-Scotty