WASHINGTON—A study published Wednesday by the National Education Association has determined that a four-year college education is still a better investment of one’s time and money than spending the same duration chained to a radiator in a dank, unlit basement. “Compared to the intellectual stimulation and personal growth achieved in a university setting, there is less to be gained from 48 months in which one is tightly shackled about the ankle and connected by a short length of chain to a leaking, immovable cast-iron radiator,” read the report in part, which played down the high cost of student loans when contrasted with the psychological trauma and physical atrophy that typically accompany four years spent in the same 3-foot radius on a cracked concrete floor with only a pail of food scraps to subsist on. “College can offer a multidisciplinary education and foster lifelong social connections, and it comes with the added benefit of providing students with a comfortable campus setting that contains actual restroom facilities. These are things one would not get while detained in the uninsulated basement of an abandoned warehouse.” The study conceded, however, that those chained to radiators consistently outperformed college graduates on certain measures, such as screaming hallucinated demons into submission and inching along the floor on one’s stomach to drink fetid water from a puddle.

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