Sarah Pool took out a student loan six years ago when she was 25. She earned a master’s degree and was $60,000 in debt. She pays what she owes with regularity, but the debt is now $69,000. That is more than twice her annual salary as a children’s librarian.
”The glimmer of hope Sarah clings to is her enrollment in a public service student loan forgiveness program that would clear her remaining debt if she puts in seven more years of work with the government and continues to make payments on time. But she’s heard horror stories of borrowers being disqualified from the program — which is available to people who work for the government or certain nonprofits after they have paid their loans on time for 10 years — because of a paperwork error. And she’s terrified the program will be quietly eliminated. (President Trump’s 2018 budget proposal did suggest cutting it for new borrowers but would still forgive debts of people currently enrolled.) Not having the program, she says, would “kind of end my life. I‘ll be paying student loans until I’m dead, basically. Which is really scary.”
There has been a huge push to raise the college completion rate. At the same time, people like Sarah are forced to live near the poverty line to pay off their debt. Logic suggests that we as a society really don’t want more people to go to college. States have reduced their support for higher education, shifting the costs to students. Countries that want more students to attend and complete college degrees reduce costs. We don’t.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
My daughter wants to participate in this program. She’s already been paying her loans back for ten years and now she has to refinance them all to be eligible and repay them another ten years to have them finally dismissed. It’s like a never ending money pit – worse than paying a mortgage.
She was done with the coursework for her PA and needed two more years of clinical to complete the program. With a mortgage and a child this would necessitate borrowing even more money. Her father and I sat down and figured it out, and even if we helped financially, she would be so much in debt that it would eat up any pay raise she might see. She already had a good job in the field and it made better sense to focus on that career instead of switching to a more lucrative one which in the end would put her in the poor house.
To top things off, I co-signed for one of her previous loans and have those funds automatically taken from my checking account. It seems like I’ll be paying off student loans (albeit not my own) for the rest of my life. Add in her sister’s loan that we are also paying and you can see that the cost of higher education is a family affair.
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The only solution for this is tuition free higher education, just like the only solution to medical debt is universal single payer. I will back any politician – of any party – who unabashedly and unequivocally supports both of those programs (along with breaking up the “too big to fail” banks and ending the so-called “Global War on Terror”). I’m tired of being told this is a wet dream of overgrown adolescents still living in their mommies’ basements.
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Free college, single payer, breaking up the big banks AND ending the “war on terror”?
Any one of those is a wet dream, but all together constitutes a “monsoon dream.”
You must live in your parents’ basement.
But don’t worry about getting flooded.
The probability of your dream coming true in the US is precisely zero.
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A little dreaming is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There neoliberals intoxicate the brain,
And dreaming deeply sobers us again…
…Hey, I was just wondering, Poet, why there is a space between Some and DAM. There wasn’t one before.
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I was being stalked, so am now posting incognito.
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And I like your poem, by the way.
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Thank you. (Apologies to Alexander Pope.) You’re not the only regular here to change usernames because of stalkers. I was surprised, though, to read your reply to Dienne — Dienne Anum. I always perceived you as further Left.
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Farther, that is. Further, farther, tomato, potato; let’s call the whole thing off.
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My reply was tongue in cheek, by the way.
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Ahhh. Good. I’ll have to take my satire detector in for service. Seems to be on the fritz.
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Some DAM Poet… I found you’re analogy kind of sickening. You might want to read that comment again and ask yourself if the readers really want to be subjected to that kind of visual while they’re reading an education blog. I know I don’t.
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You’re = your
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Tuition free university education and universal health care are not science fiction. All the other wealthy democratic countries have some form or version of universal health care with drugs that cost a fraction of what they do in the US. Many of the countries in western Europe have tuition free university education (Germany, the Scandinavian countries, etc.). We are supposed to be the richest country on earth, it is a disgrace and a travesty that we still do not have universal health care, Medicare for all or single payer. The likelihood of any of these things happening in the next century are a long shot, especially with the GOP in charge. The vile and despicable GOPers are not doing anything about renewing CHIPS and they are undermining Medicaid with work requirements. HORRIBLE!!! The net result of the GOP efforts is to have millions more uninsured. The only major politician, that I am aware of, calling for single payer and tuition free university is Bernie.
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Joe, Students attending public schools in Buffalo are eligible for a tuition free education at New York State institutions as well as various other schools throughout the country, some of them Ivy League. Governor Cuomo has also started a tuition free program for NYS students who attend a school in the SUNY system including community colleges.
However, that is just tuition, there are also fees and living conditions (such as room and board) which must come out of someone’s pocket.
It’s not like when we went to school and could work part time to pay our expenses.
Wake up and see the situation as it really is now, not like it was in the past.
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TN’s Republican Gov. Bill Haslam & the Republican lege passed a “free” community college program for in-state residents that came with conditions and took benefits from other students. Community college was “free” only as payer of last resort. Applicants are required to complete a FAFSA loan form & take a school loan. The scholarship pays the difference between the loan & tuition. Haslam et al., covered state costs by taking away funds from the Hope Scholarship program that went to 4 year university students.
The student loan industry wins again.
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It doesn’t necessarily discourage people from going to college.
After all, 69k is chump change for someone who gets a job at Goldman Sachs after graduation, since they can probably pay that off completely with their first year bonus alone.
But it does discourage people from pursuing careers in areas like teaching that actually add something of value to our society.
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Faced with a major teaching shortage & student debt crisis, congress & the senate are going to make the crisis worse for anyone who wants a university degree in teaching. Killing teaching as a profession is a deliberate policy goal.
The HELP committee is considering eliminating Title II, the teacher preparation title, including the Teacher Quality Partnership Grants, elimination of the TEACH grants which support teacher candidates in high need schools and field, and eliminate three loan forgiveness programs for teachers, including the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.
Senate HELP Committee chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN), has said that he will work with Democrats – most notably Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), the ranking Democrat on the Committee – to draft a bipartisan reauthorization bill.
Bipartisan agreement on HELP means public education will suffer another betrayal by insider Democrats.
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While there are some fields like petroleum engineering for which there is strong demand it is clear that the US economy needs more college graduates in general like it needs a hole in the head.
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You’re confused. You’re conflating what the economy needs with what our country needs. Our country does indeed need far more well-educated citizens, especially in the arts, the humanities, teaching, social work, public policy and all those other “non-lucrative” fields.
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So true! The PTB’s push the idea that if we all embrace STEM, it will bring prosperity to all. In their view, who needs an informed, engaged citizenry?
Our high school is pushing STEM, STEM, STEM. All teachers (regardless of content area) in the district MUST do at least one STEM project from a tech product purchased by the district. Every “task” involves math and/or science.
I have no personal animus to STEM, (I actually enjoy reading/keeping up with latest developments in those content areas.) but literature and the humanities are being shoved into the alley, because STEM uber alles!
It seems that the PTBs forget that STEM pays little, if any, attention to moral and ethical concerns that we learn to address through the humanities. It seems the PTBs fail to recognize without the abilities to clearly communicate via Reading, Writing, Listening and Speaking, sustaining a healthy democracy becomes impossible. (That might be a feature, not a bug.)
We can only dream of the day when a high school science class will be required to write a Shakespearean sonnet.
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Science is amoral but it’s application is not.
Many scientists and engineers don’t understand this important distinction. They are perfectly happy to work on something that is intellectually stimulating and profitable to them and their employer regardless of it’s ethical ramifications.
Too few scientists and engineers have more than a passing acquaintance with the humanities (if that).
Many of them simply can’t comprehend the intrinsic value of subjects like art, history, poetry and literature — to say nothing of understanding how these subjects help scientists and engineers address the ethical uses of science and engineering.
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While I deplore your premise [college degree’s currency = job salary], you might want to consider that tech training schools are equally overpriced & only obtainable by going into hock for decades.
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Here is the solution to student deft: forego your social security, Add this to your list of ideas that should not get into legislation.
https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/tom-garrett-student-debt-social-security
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Another hideous idea from one of the many GOP lizard-brained compassionless gargoyles. This has the added “benefit” (in the “minds” of GOPers) of weakening and undermining Social Security itself. In the words of Mike Malloy: Have I told you how much I hate these people (Republicans), today?
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Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Mark Zuckerberg have all expressed interest in giving away their money.
Between the three of them, they have nearly a quarter trillion.
If they really wanted to do something of value, they could use this to pay off about 1/5 of all student loan debt.
If they got other billionaires to follow suit, they might be able to completely liquidate all student loan debt.
What better use could they possibly have for their money?
Of course, the student loan debt could easily be liquidated today if the companies like Apple that owe taxes on their offshore billions paid what they owe (current total of owed corporate income taxes is at least twice the total student loan debt)
But, of course, CEOs like Apple’s Steve Crook refuse.
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Oops,
Tim Crook
I was mixing my crooks (Steve Jobs and Tim Cook)
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I think this has some application to ed reform, in that this in the direction they are headed in.
What if ed reformers went a step further Right in K-12 education? Not just vouchers but universal vouchers as the one and only funding mechanism? That’s what “the money follows the child” means, right? A voucher for each family?
Say they provide a base amount for each public school student- 5k- and then rely on families to provide the rest thru either direct funding or loans.
We’ll then have a brand new lending industry- student loans, but for every lower and middle class family in the country.
This isn’t working for college students right now. Imagine how bad it could get if the higher ed funding system was applied to K-12, because THAT is where ed reform is heading.
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This is exactly what the plutocrats would love. They would have an increased number of options to stack the deck against working people, and increased opportunities to exploit and further endebt people. DeVos could expand her debt collection business. The plutocrats could wash their hands of any responsibilities to educate all the people that they believe don’t matter.
My mother-in-law was born in Copenhagen. I wonder if they would feel sorry for us and take us in?
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Of course, then they would have to eliminate mandatory schooling or cut the years substantially unless a bunch of $5000 voucher schools popped up. Education would be a privilege afforded to the wealthy.
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What if there were a volunteer organization who gave students accurate, reliable,simple information on college values and student loans?
They really seem to need good solid advice and they’re not getting it. They probably shouldn’t borrow more for college than their expected salary or wages for one year post-college, just because of the nature of interest on loans. That seems like a fairly simple rule to give them.
I’m not blaming them. There seems to be an entire cheering section devoted to ripping them off on student loans and it’s particularly treacherous for first generation college students because they don’t have family members with experience, but what if we came up with a general rule they could follow?
Ask Bill Gates if he’ll fund THAT 🙂
It’s sort of terrifying that they’re staggering around with these loans on their back like overburdened mules. I can’t imagine what the collective effect on just their hopefulness and optimism is with this. It’s HUGELY stressful. My fear is they’ll just give up on getting ahead. See the game as rigged and stop playing completely.
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Sen. Alexander wants the federal income forms required for student loans (FAFSA) streamlined in HELP reauthorization. He’d like to make it easier for more people to get student loans & go into more debt.
Think this has anything to do with easing loan requirements? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2018/01/11/education-dept-awards-debt-collection-contract-to-company-with-ties-to-devos/?hpid=hp_regional-hp-cards_rhp-card-national%3Ahomepage%2Fcard&utm_term=.436c046716d1
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Eventually this system will crumble. It has to!
I have an interview planned with Betsy DeVos for ProsperousTeachers.com coming up and student loan debt (particularly for teachers) WILL be one of the issues planned for discussion.
Thanks for highliting this Diane!
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While you are interviewing Betsy, could you ask her how the grizzly bear problem is at schools these days?
She has not said a word about it since her confirmation hearing.
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Thank you for your comments, Mark.
This post made me absolutely ill & also made me cry. (& I do NOT cry easily; my father {o.b.m.} gave me the good advice, “Life is unfair.”)
But he never told me to just suck it up & take it.
He was a “union forever” guy.
Keep fighting, everyone, because yes, WE can…we HAVE…
AND WE WILL!
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This is from ProsperousTeachers.com:
Start quote: Earning More
Selling your lesson plans
TeachersPayTeachers.com is a great way for teachers to sell their materials to other teachers for profit. If you make good lesson plans and convert them into ones you want to share post them at TpT. It is easy to do.
Here is my interview with Dale Duncan on how he earns more than his teacher salary on TpT. End quote.
Yikes! Sounds like a get rich quick scheme to me. Call me skeptical.
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I don’t see anything wrong with teachers selling their lesson plans.
Anyone who has ever been a teacher knows how much time, effort and often money goes into developing good lesson plans.
And it actually makes sense to make them available to other teachers, especially since other teachers may have no expertise in the subject area(s).
One example of a case where this is undoubtedly true is elementary science. I suspect that many elementary school teachers would actually be glad to pay a small fee for science lesson plans offered by a science teacher who has devoted a lot of time and thought to developing engaging science activities for elementary school children.
It actually makes much more sense than reinventing the wheel and many elementary teachers who do not have a strong (or perhaps any) science background may actually be hesitant to even try to incorporate science in their lessons without help from a knowledgeable colleague.
And as far as making more by selling lesson plans than from one’s teacher salary, that would not be hard in many cases (sadly)
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Is my satire detector in the way again? Sorry, I don’t see anything wrong with teachers selling ideas, but I do see something wrong with teachers having to buy ideas. Teachers should share ideas, as should doctors and other scientists, as should most professionals of intellectual pursuits. When lesson plans become commercial products, especially on the internet, all kinds of problems arise. Pearson or Amazon can buy them up and monopolize the market. Gates can centralize and control it with a third party that collects data… And new teachers don’t make enough money to have to spend more than they already do on their classrooms. I think it better to be skeptical of capitalism in public education.
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This time, my response was not tongue in cheek.
I see teachers selling their lesson plans to other teachers as a way to break the Pearson monopoly and vastly improve the content.
This is particularly true for science teaching, which is often now done from a textbook (provided by Pearson, of course).
Teaching elementary science from currently available textbooks is very sad.
I’d much prefer to see teachers teaching lessons provided by another teacher, even if those lessons had to be bought. Schools could provide money for such lessons in lieu of buying textbooks (many of which are just junk, at any rate)
Science teaching is what I am familiar with because I was once a science teacher, but I suspect the model offers value for other subjects as well.
Note: if Pearson wanted to buy lesson plans from a master teacher and package them up and sell them as a book, more power to them. It would undoubtedly be far better than most of the crap they are currently selling to schools.
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Poet,
Your argument makes more sense than mine. You’re right, the monopoly already exists; is of terrible, Common Core and tech induced, low quality; and very much needs to be broken up. My mind is changed.
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Wow.
That might be the first time I ever convinced someone of anything online. Or at least the first time that someone admitted it.
And with just two comments!
My views on this are partly shaped by my own experience, but also from talking to my brother, who is an elementary science teacher at a private school.
My brother does not even use a textbook.Instead he has students in grade 1 through six doing all sorts of hands on activities every day.
Other elementary teachers at the school bring their classes to him a couple times a week.
This is a very good model, for several reasons.
Many elementary teachers don’t have a strong science background, but this nonetheless provides their students with access to high quality science lessons without the necessity of each individual teacher having to learn all the information required to teach the science lessons AND develop the lesson plans from scratch
Unfortunately, most public schools can’t afford to have a full time elementary science teacher who does what my brother does.
I think buying lesson plans for a reasonable price from an expert like my brother is a very good way of addressing the current less than ideal situation for elementary science teaching in public schools.
Some public schools don’t really offer much of anything in the way of science in the lower grades. And even the ones that do often teach from boring textbooks. That’s a real shame.
As I said above, the schools/districts could be the ones who paid for the lessons. In fact, they could negotiate a deal with the teacher providing the lessons that allowed the schools to use the lessons in more than one classroom (eg, for all the first grade, second grade etc classrooms in a school)
My brother has actually talked about doing this after he retires from teaching.
I don’t think he will ever get rich off of it, but that is obviously not his goal, at any rate. If it had been, he certainly would not have been a teacher for as long as he has.
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You’re right that school districts need to provide resources so that teachers don’t have to go out of pocket. I am in the process of breaking away from the new, mandatory, online textbooks, and it’s a slog. I have to do everything myself. No one helps. The research, the gathering and creating of materials…all expensive and time consuming. Couple that with the fact that the district signed a contract with Bill Hates (a Freudian typo) to use his online Common Core materials, and fights me at every turn, and it’s, well, it’s difficult. I would love it if there were an inexpensive and trustworthy way to get and share good ideas.
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If schools were not giving billions of dollars to companies like Pearson for textbooks and for online crap (and much of it IS crap), they would have a LOT of money to spend on lesson plans from teachers.
A billion dollars would pay for a lot of high quality lesson plans, since there would be no publisher jacking up the price by 100, 200% or more.
And teachers could be given latitude to decide what lesson plans would best suit their needs rather than being forced to adopt stuff from Pearson et Al simply “because it’s Common Core aligned” (no accident that companies like Pearson were all in for Cc)
We can dream…
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From that web site:
Teach and Earn More/Retire Early
Get This Course (worth thousands) NOW For Only $99 and Give Yourself a Passive Raise
Enroll now for this special price. End quote
Hey, what ever floats your boat. Sure, you can earn more than your teacher salary by selling your lesson plans. (sarcasm alert)
There are a ton of lesson plan web sites where you can get ideas for free.
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I’d agree that the course is probably a waste of money.
But the idea of selling lesson plans is sound, nonetheless.
You are right that there are a lot of free materials available.
Kahn Academy stuff is free.
But much of it is also crap.
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Teachers spending money on materials is an age-old practice. That’s what companies like Scholastic were founded on.
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The COST SHIFTING in the US is kind of terrible to watch. Over the last 30 years we’ve simply shifted more and more costs from “the state” to individuals. We’re not really “saving” any money because the expense or cost doesn’t go away when you shift it- it just falls on individuals rather than the states or federal government.
If you’re plowing billions of dollars into interest on debt then that’s what you’re doing as a country. If that’s a waste of money then it’s a waste of money whether the state is paying the interest or 400 million individuals are paying it. Either way it’s “the country”.
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Privatization does not really save money; in fact, it generally costs more as it is less efficient. In education the teachers are paid less, but the administrative costs are much higher in charters.
Debt is a burden on everyone. Maybe the conservatives will figure out a way to revive the old “poor house” or debtors’ prison. Of course, it would be privatized, and DeVos could run it. She has more qualifications for that job than leading the ed. dept.
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Logic tells us that the goal is not to have engaged, activist citizens. Rather the goal is to enslave young people with debt which creates a compliant populace with limited choice. This is not accidental.
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Bingo.
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Exactly, Amy. ALEC has been working this/buying legislators & enacting THEIR laws since 1971. &…be sure to read about Jas. Buchanan (no, not the president) on Democracy in Chains. All this has been going on while we, the middle class, were going to school, were in college & working & were teaching (or other jobs) & working…& working…& raising families. While we were busy (or sleeping after all that work, or involved in other aspects of life, or tied up in watching TV or sports events), they were planning & plotting, keeping their eyes on the prize.
And now all their planning, plotting, money stockpiling & buying legislation has come to fruition. The tax plan just passed has enabled the Waltons to close down many Sam’s Clubs (more unemployment), but they are raising their workers’ wages (yeah, massive raises for them & the execs; above, perhaps, minimum for everyone else, but still starvation pay, no benefits & employees on food stamps; oh, wait, the employees are also receiving a “one-time bonus” {haven’t read how much THAT will be, but can imagine}.)
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TERRIBLE. Many politicians have gone into the education corporate businesses who funded them as politicians.
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I have college graduate children in their twenties (as I’m sure many of you do) and did you know they take college debt into consideration when they marry?
They do. Someone with little or no debt feels it’s unfair to “marry into” someone with 100k in debt. This even causes conflict with in-laws, because the parents who paid for college resent the parents who didn’t or weren’t able to when their children marry one of the unlucky “debtors”.
This is how BIG this thing is for that generation. It affects every facet of their lives.
I myself went to community college and then a state college essentially free- I paid about 1500 a YEAR for community college, which I could easily afford with a part-time job. That is a HUGE advantage I got that they aren’t getting. I had no debt- zero- when I graduated. Since I didn’t borrow money for a car the first debt payment I made was on a mortgage, and by that time I was married with two kids. Their experience is completely different. And worse.
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The outrageous cost of post-secondary education & unrealistic loan policies are the new indentured servitude. We live where there’s a wide choice of quality state & city schools that are inexpensive or free to residents & appropriate for our daughter, but most people aren’t that fortunate.
When I went to college, my parents, who were reasonably well-off but by no means wealthy, were able to pay the full cost of a well-known private university without me or them going into debt. A family of equivalent means today, allowing for inflation, couldn’t come anywhere near paying for that same school.
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I have no sympathy for a person who borrows for college, and attempts to enter a field, which does not offer a compensation rate, adequate to enable repayment. Students should be counseled, on tailoring their academics, to fit the job market. When a person borrows up to the hilt, and then takes a degree in Italian literature, or 17th century French poetry, I have no sympathy for them.
If more American students took degrees in STEM, and other high-paying career fields, the problem would be solved.
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My daughters degree was in the STEM field. She makes a reasonable amount of money but between taxes, mortgage, utilities, and childcare, and, of course, her student loans, there isn’t much left for quality of life expenses like for food, her car, and health insurance.
Wake up Charles, college is too expensive for the average family to afford no matter what your profession.
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You’re right. We should stop learning literature, poetry, and worldly cultures. Who needs people who think about stuff? We just need better military drones and forget about all this nonsense that makes civilization what it is. College should only be a gateway into the Machine. (There we go! My tongue is back in my cheek too. That’s better.)
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I have nothing against the humanities. But, students need to live in the real world. If you want to borrow up to the hilt, and study sociology, poetry, 6th Century Hittite inscriptions, etc. do not be surprised when the real world bites you in the ass.
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“Send in the drones” (apologies to Judy Collins)
Ain’t life a bitch?
Ain’t life unfair?
Poets are stuck on the ground
STEM in mid-air
Send in the drones
Isn’t it bliss?
Don’t you approve?
One who keeps tearing around
One who can’t move
Where are the drones?
Send in the drones
Don’t you love debt?
Your fault, I fear
I thought that you’d want what I want
Sorry, my dear
But where are the drones
There ought to be drones
Quick, send in the drones
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“Send in the Drones”…..absolutely classic. Just what I needed…. a good laugh on a zero degree morning in the pit of a grueling winter.
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Please do keep posting. Your direct, honest, ruthless, unapologetic heartlessness is such a refreshing change from all the other right-wingers who try to pretend to compassion. Please continue to let it all hang out, Charles.
(P.S., STEM is not really a high paying career any more. And, as I’m sure you know the law of supply and demand, the more people that go into it, the more true that is. Feature, not a bug.)
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I live in the real world. I make no pretense about compassion for the terminally stupid.
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Charles,
I feel compassion for the terminally stupid until they are elected to political office. Then they are able to impose their stupidity in all of us.
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Great comment. Thank you.
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“The Real World”
I live in the real world
Of missiles and tanks
Where billion$ are flowing
From national banks
Where money is endless
For wars in far lands
(From taxpayers, penniless,
Living on sands)
Expect no compassion
For student of Letter
Who traded a cash-in
For life of a debtor
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I love the smell of crushing debt and napalm in the morning.
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Ring of Fire and Fury (apologies to Johnny Cash and Michael Wolff)
Debt is a burning thing
And it makes a fiery ring
Bound by school desire
I fell in to a ring of fire
I fell in to a burning ring of fire
I went down to the college town,
And the rates went higher
And it burns, burns, burns
The ring of fire
The ring of fire…
…That’s all I have time for. Gotta grade papers.
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The real world craves better comma usage.
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This is precisely why I say the government should not be pushing anything.dealing with education or much else.
They do not have crystal ball. There are many people with student loans that they cannot pay back due to no good paying job.
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One big problem is that we throw ALL student loan debt into the same pot. But they are not the same.
Students are going into debt to pay for a for-profit college with great marketing materials when they could be going to a community college for a fraction of the cost and get a better education.
Students are going into debt to pay for a $70,000/year private college when they could go to a state university for significantly less.
One thing I have noticed is that many high school seniors and their middle class parents are becoming much savvier about how much to spend for their college education. Unless your parents are extraordinarily wealthy or your family qualifies for considerable financial aid, the cost of a college is important — which may mean turning down a highly ranked private university for a good state school or a school offering large merit scholarships. But that doesn’t address the issue of what to do about all the debt accumulated by past students.
Congress should have put a stop to for-profit college loans long ago. I think Obama’s DOE tried to do something and they were blocked by Congress — including some Democrats. But many for-profit colleges would go out of business without the guaranteed loans and that is a good thing. Public community colleges should be subsidized without any penalty for very tiny graduation rates. In NYC, the CUNY system isn’t free, but it is relatively affordable and a bastion of educational opportunities for first generation immigrants. I had the privilege of attending a CUNY graduation ceremony and it’s truly remarkable to see how the system can work very well without a student having to go into huge debt for their college education. Sure it would be better if CUNY were free but even if a student has to take out loans to pay full tuition, it is not an impossible burden.
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Unfortunately for many teachers like myself the public service student loan program does not allow anyone who had any student debt balance before a certain date to participate. Of course many of us had a balance and are therefore forever unable to benefit from the program. My student debt is never ending, doubling due to hard times, illness, etc when I have had to put it in forbearance. It is so massive I cannot even afford the interest payments on my teachers salary. It bothers me to be unable to pay this debt. It is depressing to know I will be paying it out of my pension.
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One of the alternative methods to pay for college was used by my father during the Great Depression. He farmed a year, then went to school a year. He graduated in eight years, then spent seven years courting my mother a whole state away. Of course there was one problem. He did not enter the business of making money until it was very late in life. Dairy farming being what it was, we were not wealthy. If you give up four to eight years of income and put your life on hold, it begins to make a student loan look better.
Maybe we should look at the equation from our point of view. Why do we want a society which cannot find work until it is thirty something? Is that good?
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My parents were also part of the “greatest generation.” They never went into debt except for a home mortgage. If they needed something, they saved up to buy it. They never had credit cards until my brother and I sent them on a trip to Hawaii for their 40th anniversary. They lived frugally and sensibly and were able to avoid debt, but their wages were not stagnant they way they are now. They always warned my brother and me about the debt trap so we both avoided it.
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Many people in Utah finance college this way. The problem is, most of the students who work and then take off for college and then stop college to work again never finish.
It isn’t like it was during the Great Depression, or even 20 years ago. College is so expensive today that it would take 2 or 3 years to pay for a year of college, and eventually, life intervenes, and people don’t graduate.
So then, they have no degree to show for all of their work. Utah’s college graduation rate is abysmal, because it just doesn’t work to stop and start college for two to three years at a time. And Utah’s state schools are among the most affordable in the nation.
Furthermore, scholarships are much harder to come by, even with excellent grades and test scores. My alma mater no longer gives full tuition scholarships,even for very high merit kids. THe maximum is now 80% tuition. This is a relatively modest state school. I wouldn’t have made it through college without my tuition waiver, and that was 25 years ago.
It is not fair to blame students for not working hard enough. It’s just not possible with the skyrocketing costs of tuition.
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There was a solution before the election ,there is a solution today , where is the comet.
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Student loan creditors should not have a preferred status in bankruptcy. By that, I mean it should not be more difficult to discharge student loan debt in bankruptcy than most other types of debt.
The recipients of payments made by students loans (e.g. colleges and universities) should also bear some of the risk of default. That would help ensure that schools have an incentive to graduate students who will have the capacity to repay debt.
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MG,
Student debt is not any other kind of debt. Years ago, states and the federal government encourages students to go to college and graduate school by providing generous public subsidies for their tuition. In the past two decades, governments have decided to shift the cost burden to students, effectively discouraging participation in higher education. This was and is a political decision. Politicians laud the value of higher education while reducing subsidies. Thus, student debt is the result of political decisions, not student irresponsibility.
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Great comment to Charles up there, Dienne. Remember, Charles admitted to us that he works in IT for the U.S. Government at the Pentagon in his comment on the post Diane did RE: subscribers not receiving her blog & readers having difficulty posting comments.
I would assume, then, that he has a good, stable job w/excellent health insurance & other benefits.
Our college grads and present college students are HUMAN BEINGS, Charles, & this is still America, supposedly the land of the free. Supposedly free to pursue health, happiness & liberty. Should the younger generation suffer because the greedy & selfish people (many of whom INHERITED their wealth & may never have had to work a day in their lives) are changing the rules for their benefit? Are these younger people expected to give up their dreams & take jobs they hate because our elected officials accept bribes & don’t represent their constituents & misspend OUR (taxpayer) money? Does it not occur to you, Charles, that there is no job security in STEMLand, & many people have been laid off or outsourced?
Copy what Dienne said to you at 6:34 PM. And Chris Hedges would call you a “useful idiot” of the right.
I call you a useless idiot of the wrong.
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I am a contract employee, NOT a tenured civil-service employee. I can be terminated anytime, with or without cause. I understand there is no job security for people who work in engineering, any more than there is for basket-weavers or coal miners. I have been laid off. I have been down-sized. (I once worked for Lockheed-Martin. The division I was working for closed, and 7000 people were laid off).
I once had to sell cars, to pay the rent. I did not like it, but I picked myself up, and went to work every day. My parents could not afford to pay for my college education, so I joined the Air Force, and went to college on the GI Bill.
Go ahead and blame the ridiculous choices of college students on the “rich”, and politicians. That is your privilege.
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THANK YOU!!! I am truly sick of Charles’ smugness and overall refusal to see what regular people go through on a regular basis. AND, he comments all the time–during the day. Is his he spending taxpayer-funded time to comment here?
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Thanks for posting this Diane, one of the largest crises in our country today. Several people commenting here are arguing for free college tuition. I think a better solution works in the other direction. Probably only one quarter of students now in college should really be there, so high school counselors need to be telling the other three quarters, go to trade school. There are thousands of semi-skilled jobs, requiring less than a college education, going unfilled. My district cut out all the practical courses, because, of course, no one ever becomes an electrician or a carpenter or a welder or needs consumer math, because, of course, every kid is being prepared for Harvard.
Some here have commented about the need for our society to have educated citizens. Teach this generation of young people filled with a(n irrational) sense of entitlement, to take free courses, extension courses, affordable community college courses, and tell them to read college textbooks, and books in general. This will give us educated citizens who avoid strangling debt.
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Larry….I agree about trade school. Hell, if I had the time and money right now I’d love to learn a trade. (I don’t know if I’d be any good at it. For example, I seem to have difficulty just sawing a board straight, no matter how much I focus.)
But I disagree with your statement about, “this generation of young people filled with a(n irrational) sense of entitlement,” I don’t think that idea is factually correct. But, even if someone wants to argue that it is, we older folks created this generation, right? WE did this. I mean, those of us who have kids or have taught these kids etc….
I bought my daughter her smart phone -albeit after having her be one of the last kids in class without one -for years. For better and sometimes for worse, that was my decision. It bugs me that “kids today” are on these phones 24/7. But it seems like just about everyone of all ages is glued to these phones now.
And…..yeah, as a dad paying for college I’d love my children to get jobs. Good jobs with a future where they are treated like human beings. I don’t know….that goal just seems like more of a stretch these days. A lot more.
And I can’t help thinking that learning for learning’s sake (including college) still has a tremendous potential value. Of course, we can’t always anticipate the payoff that things we choose right now might have in the future. What seems like idle, wasted time might NOT be down the line. Basic research…. seeming dead ends…..curiosity pursued. We just had an interesting piece posted on this site about this idea, right?
But, yeah….you are 100% correct. The loan crisis is terrible.
Now I gotta go make out my bills. Ha, ha. Part of my regular Sunday morning routine though I’m avoiding looking at the college’s financial aid “to do” list. It might ruin my day. Take care.
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Larry and John, I find myself in agreement with both of you. A long forgotten plank of Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign—a DLC/Progressive Policy Institute influenced idea—was to create a youth apprenticeship system based on the German model. It was actually a major part of his speeches to labor and education groups. Once he was elected, it was immediately forgotten and never again acted on (eerie parallels to Obama’s immediate caving on the Bush tax cuts). Done right, a youth apprenticeship system would be a shining example of public-private partnerships and give non-college educated persons a real shot of belonging to a stable, productive middle class. If you really want to understand the German economic miracle of the 1950s through the 1970s, you can only do so by understanding the integral role youth apprenticeship played. Americans don’t get it. And I think this ties in to your discussion about “entitlement.”
I agree more with John. I would make a distinction, however, between entitlement and (reasonable) expectation. Entitlement, for example, is something I perceive more among wealthy persons. To take the most glaring, obvious example, we need to look no further than the family of our Dear Leader. No need to get into it here. But I do think, with an evolving understanding history and of what is possible in a wealthy industrialized society, it is not unreasonable for citizens to have a rising tide, to appropriate a phrase, of social and economic expectations. We no longer live in an isolated age, place, or historical circumstance, in which we can opine, as some obvious ones on this site do, about politics and governing in the abstract. There has always been an inherent tension between politics, writ large, and material security. But only in the 20th century that these concepts have become inextricably conjoined.
Consider, for argument’s sake, that every political discussion can be distilled into the tensions between the concepts of liberty, equality and justice. Think of them as three points on a triangle of sorts that constantly changes shape, mostly subtly within societies and cultures, often starkly between them. If, to take one extreme example, you accept the Rousseau aphorism of “forcing one to be free” that was put into its most extreme form in totalitarian and fascist regimes, then the shape of that triangle is changed by the emphasis on equality and shape it distorts in liberty and justice. Or, to stay with simplistic arguments, how it might look in a Hobbesian world. What is liberty, equality and justice for a rich and powerful person, to do as one pleases, would look very different to a person with no power.
This is where I make the distinction between entitlement and expectation. This relates to the discussion above about the costs of free college education. In a system that values capitalism and individual will over all else, doing so would be unthinkable. But we now have a mixed economy have different ideas (most of us) about what constitutes equality and justice. Admittedly, they are not all the same within each of us, but I think we can agree the that shape of the triangle I discussed above is very different today than it was 50 years, 100 years, or 200 years ago.
And that, to me, is expectation; the reasonable expectations we have for ourselves and, more importantly in a well-developed polity, for our future generations. Therefore, I don’t think of society picking up the costs of education for all, whether they are college-bound or not, is unreasonable. The expression of our political and societal goals is most obvious in what we, as a society, spend our money on. Currently at the federal level, the highest priority is military spending. This necessarily distorts the shape of our triangle of liberty, equality and justice. But if we changed our priorities—we have the money and prosperity to do so if we wanted, just not the political will—would it make that triangle smaller or skewed? I would argue not. In an advance, plural society, there will always be these tensions. When we decide that equality, in this case education funding and access, is important enough to infringe on the justice of wealthy persons (through higher taxes) or the military (through amended priorities), I would argue that it increases our collective liberty, which, over the long term, would expand our individual notion of justice.
Our children should have expectations of economic and physical security and educational opportunity in order to live in a society built on a pluralism of respected values. That doesn’t mean an effortless nirvana of entitlement. It means that they will be equipped to navigate the maps of liberty, equality and justice in an ever-changing world to suit their individual and social needs.
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GregB
I have actually stated those two sentences to the congressman in the past . The numbers is what I will be delivering now.
“There has always been an inherent tension between politics, writ large, and material security. But only in the 20th century that these concepts have become inextricably conjoined.”
I would say it has always been more than a connection. I prefer the definition given by Harold Laswell in the 1930s , pretty simplistic . I can not think of any social system from hunter gather to post industrial society it would not apply to. It also strips bare any pretense of a free market system .
Economics is the distribution of goods, services and labor . Or “Who Gets What , When and How”
“Politics , Who Decides Who Gets What ,When and How “.
That’s it back in overload mode
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John Ogozalek
Well here comes the perspective of a tradesman having retired after 42 years of a sainted career. I was lucky !
Thomas Frank points out that Democrats have for years portrayed Education as the solution to our problems . It is not the economy that has failed large portions of the population . It is the individual who failed to pursue education . If he did pursue higher education ,then he pursued the wrong type of higher education .Thus justifying their view of a meritocracy and their own positions in it. Krugman pointed out in “Sympathy for the Luddites” , “What if One goes deeply in debt to acquire the skills ,only to find out they are no longer need ” The Republicans also portray education as a solution , but are more vocal about what they consider to be the wrong education , that would be education that challenged the “enterprise system” .
Earlier I said bring on the comet , It was overload . You could not make up a conspiracy story as complex as the education wars if you tried. The assault on Higher Education goes all the way back to the Powell memo and it has been “political decisions” (Diane) to cut the funding of higher education in line with that doctrine. When you make education un affordable, you change the nature of the institution and the goals of those seeking that education. Thus since I went to the then free CUNY system, college is no longer seen as a pursuit of knowledge and interests , but rather as a path to a career. Seen that way by the students and the parents of those students,who have to foot the bill. Thus the Liberal Arts and Humanities have hugely declined as Business programs and STEM has replaced them .
As a blogger called Homeless Adjunct once said: ” there is no price to high to pay for ones future”…. . “But they are only buying a lottery ticket to that future”
Now that it has not worked out for large numbers of those who pursued what we have told them to study . We long for the day that trades were taught in schools . Yes we have a vast skills gap 6 million unfilled jobs . Whatever you do don’t delve into that number. Among other things you might discover is a few million unskilled jobs. As well as jobs located only in cyberspace , the internet making it very easy for employers to make postings they are in no rush to fill , Jobs located a hundred miles from nowhere to avoid unions and paying $10 an hour. And yes some jobs at various levels of the education spectrum where perhaps there are shortages. Of course for the right price you would always be able to lure employees from your competitors and from other parts of the country . Then wages would rise . Wages are relatively stagnant . Finally we are seeing some movement(NOT MUCH) at the very bottom, as the labor market tightens and as States raise the minimum wage. But that is not in response to their skills .
So I am not only having this discussion here . I am having this discussion with my Long Island congressman Tom Suozzi .( Tom a nice enough neo liberal Democrat what we used to refer to as a Republican before the party went crazy } Tom likes to highlight Tom and the Trades . Yes the much sought after skilled tradesman earning a very solid middle class income . The income Tom would be referring to is the income in the Unionized highly skilled trades, incomes compatible with highly paid Long Island teachers, principals and superintendents (depending on position) .
I stated I was lucky, very lucky . Seasonal and Market conditions always affected the construction trades. The reason that their wages were higher than other sectors, was always because it was a feast or famine industry . A few decades back before the advent of modern concrete mix and methods that could be used in cold weather, construction would slow to a crawl in winter months . The word Journeyman derives from one who journeys for work . So economic slow downs were always factored in and one could journey for work.
Those conditions are to be expected . What is not expected is structural unemployment and we have seen unemployment for one reason or another since 1991 in NYC Trade Unions. Only interrupted by very few brief periods of full employment ,like 1999 or after Super Storm Sandi .
In a few weeks I will be delivering to Tom the figures on unemployment in the trades many of these men live in his district . NYC is in the middle of a massive construction boom in Residential and Commercial construction . Here is one of those shortages .
There are 738 unemployed Electricians who went through 6 year apprenticeships receiving an Associates with their journeyman’s card . The average wait for a job being some where in the 20 week range.
That is a 7.8% unemployment rate in a construction boom. The Westchester / Fairfield local has seen unemployment for periods of up to 99 weeks .
The situation in other trades is similar . Where it isn’t, is where market share and membership has dropped in unison . Like the story of the rejuvenation of Pittsburgh, a booming City whose metropolitan population dropped by 1/2 a million people. As the population of the nation increased by a third.
Perhaps the Soylant corporation came to town.
But there is a shortage of skilled labor willing to work for between $8 and $18 an hour with no bennifits . Try living in NY on that wage. What do you think these workers blame their situation on . They are wrong but guess who most voted for.
American workers do not need skills or training. They need the political
power to secure decent wages . That is precisely why the institutions of Higher Education have been under assault since the early 70’s .
“The Enterprise System was under assault”
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Be sure to put the first two sentences of your last paragraph above on the top of anything you leave for your congressional visit. I will be stealing it.
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If she paid what was due on time ,I don’t understand how what she owed is more than what she borrowed. The amount owed should slowly decrease.
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Wow. No clue. The interest rates are such that the amount of money increases, when only the mininum is paid. These kinds of loans are structured so that a person pays mostly interest in the early years of the loan. Very little principal is paid until the very end of the loan. If the minimum only is paid, the interest accrues as it is paid.
Have you never had a mortgage or other similar loan??? This is the case all the time.
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PS: If affordable, a good way to help this situation is dedicate even a little extra money a month towards the loan, designated on the form returned with the bill as “principal only.” If extra is paid, but there is no note about where the money goes, the extra money simply goes more to interest. But if you can pay principal down some over time, it reduces the amount of interest over time, which reducing the length of the loan.
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I had a mortgage on the only home I owned and presently live in. It was paid off over 20 years ago.I understand that at the beginning most of the payment goes to pay the interest. Later the opposite happens. What I wonder is how a loan can be structured so the interest is more than the payment. Is it because the payment is limited to a percentage of your income? Your comment is uncalled for saying I had no clue. I was only curious how this could happen Actually your explanation was not clear. By the way I have a masters degree in Mathematics so I do have a clue about how loans and interest work.
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Sorry it was not clear. I suppose I am younger than you are and have had way more experience with these types of loans. The loans today ALL accrue so much interest at the beginning of the loan that a person is “upside down” immediately after taking the loan. That means that the amount of the loan one has to pay is greater than the original cost. I apologize that my comments were not clear.
I have paid mortgages on two houses (one currently), as well as a couple of car loans and a student loan, and ALL of them have been structured like this. And I have excellent credit. It’s par for the course these days.
I also apologize for my flippant remark. You are right. It was uncalled for. The problem is that the Baby Boomer generation, of which I assume you are since your mortgage was paid off 20 years ago, when I had just graduated from college, have no idea what it’s like to be a Gen X or Millennial as far as finances are concerned. Some of the comments berating students about making “poor choices” are ridiculous, and I was getting irritated. You hadn’t made the comments, and I should not have been irritated. My sincerest apologies.
The financial “game” has changed a LOT in the last 25-30 years. A lot of the people berrating students for making “poor decisions” probably did similar decision-making at their age. The problem is that no one can afford to make one iota of a mistake in this day and age and expect to live life comfortably. For example, I should NEVER have gone into education, nor should my husband. Because we are both teachers, we will NEVER be able to live anything but a life of near-poverty. Our sons will probably not be able to go to college, and because of some set-backs with injuries and health issues, we will probably also never be able to retire. The world is very different, and the financial odds are stacked against 95% of average Americans aged 50 or under.
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These types of “balloon loans” also happen to be what did in millions of families during the 07/08 financial meltdown.
Balloon student loans and balloon mortgages are intended to suck people in and hang them on a meat hook. That’s their whole purpose. As they say in the software industry, it’s a feature, not a bug.
Many big investment banks were handing out “liars’ loans” (loans that the banks knew people could not afford to pay back) like candy during the housing bubble for balloon mortgages that the banks knew full well would eventually” explode” .
Of course, these banks packaged up the loans and sold them off as derivatives soon after closing on them so they (the big bank) would not be stuck holding the empty money bag.
These loans are often not just unethical but actually fraudulent. And the fraud is often perpetrated by the one offering the loan. “Due diligence” becomes a cruel joke when all the incentives are to merely “look the other way”.
See William Black’s writing for more detail about how all this works.
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The student loans we are paying off are pretty typical and operate like our mortgage. We are paying interest on the principal and can reduce the total interest by paying more than the minimum and designate that extra for principal reduction. The loans that scare me are variable rate loans where you bet on what the interest will be through the life of your loan even when they control the amount a rate can rise.
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I was confused here.
Student loans are not balloon loans.
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It is with mixed feelings that I respond to this post. Like several of those folks who have responded, I was fortunate enough to have attended college at a time (the 70s) and in a state (Texas) when/where tuition was very affordable. I also chose to live at home and attend community college before attending a local university. I made these choices to keep my expenses at a minimum. My parents were able to help me, but would not have been able to help me with room and board if I had gone away for four years. A private college would not have been possible. As a college student, I was able to explore many areas of study(art, music,languages, math)that interested me, but knew that the choice of major needed to be practical as well as satisfying. For me that choice was mathematics. It is a field that I love. I would have enjoyed any of the other areas equally, but math offered me the best chances of having a satisfying career with a decent salary. I’ve met too many unhappy ex art/music majors doing jobs they hate for minimum wage who don’t have time/money to do what they love. From time to time I still take classes through colleges, art centers, and community centers. When I create a piece of art, I only need to satisfy myself, I don’t have to worry about whether or not someone will purchase it for enough to pay for the time and materials that went into it. I’ve also been able to purchase college courses from the Great Course Company–a really great resource, incidentally. (While college is a great time to learn and grow, it shouldn’t be the end.)
So what am I trying to say? I think state colleges an universities need to stay affordable(not necessarily free),but students also need to make responsible choices. You also can’t look at college graduation as the end of an opportunity for learning.
Why don’t I think college should be free? First of all, not everyone has the ability or desire to go to college (For the record, I believe everyone has a right to a good free K-12 school). More importantly, I don’t think that college students truly appreciate their education unless they are paying for some part of it. (A well educated population is important, so the state needs to foot a good chunk of the bill.) Finally, I fear that if college is made free, it will become rationed. (College may be free in other countries, but fewer people have an opportunity to go.) Let’s face it, funds are not unlimited and no matter what tax structure we wind up with, they never will be. For example, about 15 years ago SC made tuition at state institutions free for high school graduates with B averages who maintained a B average while completing a minimum of 12 credits per semester. The end result, according to my friends who teach there, was a higher tuition for those students who can’t maintain the B average. These students are in turn, worked more hours while going to school(making it harder to get back to that magic B average) or borrowed more money to stay in school.
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As a person, 65, in the same situation, this is terrifying. I see stories of peoples social security taken if they are in default. People put into poverty. People who have contributed to our society for a life time, forced into poverty. This is terrifying. I have earned two masters degrees and a doctorate in the last 14 years to keep myself marketable in a challenging market only to find that people think I am too old, too educated, and too experienced and do not want to hire me. I have with interest $170,000 in loans. I teach in a university but as a lecturer and do not get paid enough to cover my expenses. State budget cuts now and my position is eliminated in June. My extensions are at an end on my loan and I have an application in for an income based adjustment. I will still not be able to afford this. If I had been able to get the work I thought my education would bring, I could have been able to make payments. But instead, I too am at the end of my rope. The the “you need to be accountable” BS is a cop out. I have been accountable for 55 years working and contributing to society. I have played by the rules. But alas, I now have nothing but school loans I cannot pay to show for it. What civilized country does this to its citizens? We do in the US. This is quite demoralizing.
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The financialization of the economy has made this possible. That and the failure of states to adequately fund their public universities. And the system whereby campaign donors hire lobbyists to write laws that get passed by the legislators who receive the donations. Pay-to-play is the rule.
Why are there so many restrictions on bankruptcy in general and student loan payback in particular? Simple. Joe Biden, an influential Senator, represented Delaware, a haven for financial corporations.
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I am going to give some unasked for advice on going to graduate school. This advice is based solely on personal observations. Please feel to contradict if your experience, observations, or data tells you something different. First of all, if your goal is to become a college professor, it is NEVER a good idea to go into debt in order to obtain a Phd. The typical college professor salary is, in general, no higher than that of a high school teacher of similar experience and lesser education. In addition, since you will lose between 5 to 10 years of earnings, you will probably need to postpone retirement by an equivalent number of years. Also, once you finish your degree, it is unlikely that you will be able to choose the region of the country in which you wish to live. You need to be willing to relocate.
If you are going to graduate school, apply for a TA or TF position. At the institution I attended, almost all the graduate students in my discipline(as well as a number of other disciplines) were TAs. After all, someone has to teach all those freshmen. The TA stipends are generally enough to cover(barely) tuition and living expenses. You will need to live very frugally during those years. Eating out and new clothing are unnecessary expenses and are to be avoided. It is unwise to borrow against your future. If the program you are applying for has no TAs, then be very cautious. It is probably intended as a revenue source for the institution. I’m not saying that these programs aren’t worthwhile, but you need to do the math before entering such a program.
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