[Mermaid]Any thoughts on this? Does education/college degree pay off? Why is education a $$ sucking process? Shouldnt education be available to everyone and be considered a basic necessity?
STUDENT LOANS ARE FOR SUCKERS Wed Feb 12,10:07 PM ET Add Op/Ed - Ted Rall to My Yahoo!
By Ted Rall
The Fleecing of Our Young
NEW YORK--Five years ago, I wrote a story called "College Is For Suckers." I argued that the costs of tuition, dorms and fees had risen so high that the additional income you'd earn as a college graduate---compared to going straight to work after high school--wouldn't make up for the massive student loan debts you'd acquire.
The magazine that ran my piece is no more. Both books that published it are out of print. But the problem of crippling student loan debt has gotten worse.
The pre-bankrupting of America's best and brightest, the young men and women who attend private colleges and public universities, is one of our nation's enduring, quiet scandals. Momentarily breaking the silence was a Jan. 28 New York Times profile of young adults who, because of their student loans, are forced to choose jobs solely based on pay. Margot Miles, a legal secretary who borrowed $25,000 to attend UPenn, wants to go to law school but "just can't imagine taking out any more loans." Anisa Brophy, an aspiring cartoonist, ran up a $70,000 tab attending Wilson College in Pennsylvania. Even Connie Chavez, whose $10,000 student loan Hofstra bill doesn't seem so bad, "has virtually given up on her dream of going to business school."
These kids will not take low-paying jobs teaching in the inner cities. They won't join the Peace Corps. If they find themselves with a few extra hours here and there, they won't volunteer at a homeless shelter--they'll take a second job. When young people defer their dreams, when options vanish, America loses.
Average tuition and fees at a private college or university is $18,000 and rising at twice the inflation rate. Meanwhile, what students call "real" financial aid--grants and scholarships, not loans--keeps falling. The result is two-fold. The Rand Corporation estimates that 6 million Americans will be "priced out of the system" over the next two decades. And for those who bite the bullet, more students than ever (46 percent in 1990, 70 percent in 2000) end up taking out college loans.
The U.S. college industry churns out about a million newly-minted graduates every year. On average, they owe $27,600 to creditors they can't shake even by declaring bankruptcy. Depending on the type of loan, a typical 21-year-old faces a minimum monthly payment of from $350 to $420 for the next ten years. Anisa Brophy, the would-be cartoonist, is in for at least $880 a month. If debtees have trouble paying, they can apply for a temporary deferment, but the interest keeps piling on.
Why do people borrow so much at such an early age? The College Board claims that college grads earn $1 million more during their lifetimes than those with high-school degrees. And most half-decent jobs--positions in corporate offices, not just professional occupations like law and medicine--require that you have a college degree just to be considered.
You may be thinking: tough bananas. This is America. If you're stupid enough to borrow more dough than the average Joe pays for a house to listen to men with bad beards expound on Proust, it's your own overeducated fault that you're stuck with the bills. So what if 17-year-olds don't know jack about loan indentures, future salaries, or what they want to do for a living?
But that's horse manure.
As more and more employers require college degrees, more and more people will seek them. During the age of advancing globalization, national leaders say, Americans need more education to compete. Moreover, student loans are big business. Citibank's Student Loan Marketing Association, which holds outstanding student loans totaling $21 billion, recently announced that it turned a profit of $176 million last year, a 30 percent increase over 2001.
Student loan debt has become even more burdensome as the U.S. enters its third consecutive year of recession. Fifty-nine percent of degreed job seekers have been looking for work for at least three months, some for as long as a year. "Job seekers frustrated by last year's tough market have low expectations about this year's job market," says Michael Caggiano of the TrueCareers jobs board.
If and when they find a job, the pay isn't all that great. The National Association of Colleges and Employers says that average starting salaries for the Class of 2002 range from $27,000 for political science majors to $51,000 for computer programmers. Around $35,000 is the national norm.
After taxes, that works out to about $2,000 a month--the rent on a tiny apartment in a borderline neighborhood in New York or San Francisco. When a fifth of your paycheck goes to student loans, it's hard to afford a car, much less purchase a first home. Economists looking for explanations for declining sales of big-ticket items might start here.
College tuition is free or nominal in most industrialized, and many Third World, countries. The United States' insistence that students assume huge debts to pay for their college education is unusual enough that the Chinese government included it in its 2001 report of American human rights violations.
Until the U.S. joins the civilized world, our big-spending government can make things easier on twentysomething graduates by abolishing the student loan industry.
Eliminating the debt racket wouldn't be difficult. Calling off the invasion of Iraq, for instance, would save an estimated $200 billion---that's six years of fiscally emancipated youth right there. Eliminating last year's $1.5 trillion tax cut--money that would have gone to rich people who won't miss it--would pay off everyone's student loans for the next 50 years.
At age 39, I'm just $400 away from paying off my last student loan. Nonetheless, I could use the break.
(Ted Rall is the author of "Gas War: The Truth Behind the American Occupation of Afghanistan (news - web sites)," an analysis of the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline and the motivations behind the war on terrorism. Ordering information is available at amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com.)
RE: virus: Student Loans are for suckers?
« Reply #1 on: 2003-02-26 20:31:05 »
[Mermaid]Any thoughts on this? Does education/college degree pay off? Why is education a $$ sucking process? Shouldnt education be available to everyone and be considered a basic necessity?
[Kalkor] "Invest in your youth... make them indentured to you for the education they receive and then cash in on their subsequent production to society for your own benefit."
Sounds like a good investment from the perspective of the loaners. And the schools.
Re:Student Loans are for suckers?
« Reply #2 on: 2003-02-27 00:08:54 »
Yeah, we as students are pretty screwed. Government grants have been cut for schooling, and that really hurts a lot of us. For people like me, scholarships aare hard to get ahold of, because all the scholarships around here are for minoritys only. It's also hard to get a good job around here to pay for school. I grew up on the east side of town, and the west side is the "rich" side. All the jobs are over there, though it's hard to get them because there is such a seperation around here. As soon as I write down what school I went to on an application, I might as well have just ripped it up and throw it away. So yea, it's hard to pay for school.
I'm very undecided on if school is a waste of my tiem and money. On one hand, you're scared that if you don't go through college, you wont get a good job. On the other end of the scale, you'll be paying loans for half of your life, and you'll be in debt because of it. It's a lose-lose situation. As it is right now I can't afford to buy a car since a rod went in engine.
Oh, the joys of being a student. I'm seriously thinking of dropping school just so I have enough money to live.
Safe from the pain and truth and choice and other poison devils See.. they don't give a fuck about you, like i do. Just stay with me, safe and ignorant, Go back to sleep Go Back to sleep
Safe from the pain and truth and choice and other poison devils See.. they don't give a fuck about you, like i do. Just stay with me, safe and ignorant, Go back to sleep Go Back to sleep
Re:Student Loans are for suckers?
« Reply #5 on: 2003-02-27 10:16:38 »
Student loans are not for suckers. I went to a state-run university. I studied all of the time, worked roughly 20-30 hours week and received student loans to supplement what money I made.
Grants (government) and scholarships (from private groups) can supplement your tuition, boarding, and book fees.
Grants may be in decline because they've slowly been cut out of educational funding. But, you cannot pin-point the blame on the federal or state levels of government. They're more people vying for dollars from our state and federal governments. Students, faculties, and universities MUST make it be known that the further decline of monies set for grants cannot continue. To do nothing is to weave your own web...and get trapped in it.
Scholarships are another situation, altogether. These are funds being doled out by groups seeking to aid people who have displayed academic excellence; although, some are awarded on certain characteristics. To put in other words: the vast majority of scholarships are awarded on merit, regardless of race/ethnicity/religion. However, there are some scholarships which will require you to be of a certain ethnicity or race. However, that doesn't affect all scholarships.
There are conceivable ways of attaining monies to pay off university tuitions. However, this can be a very tiring experience. Seek out the assistance of guidance counselors (high school and university levels) and go to your local public and university libraries. Conduct a search for resources that detail loans, scholarships, and grants. I just performed a search on Harvard's Library site and came up with 180, or so, items that fit the keyword criteria of "scholarships and grants". Also, be aware that while your local university or public library may not have the exact materials you are seeking there are ways to acquire them at your library via interlibrary loans or having the materials acquired by the library you are working through.
As I've told many people in my life---education can be had if you look in the right places.
Re: virus: Re:Student Loans are for suckers?
« Reply #6 on: 2003-02-27 14:46:39 »
[Casey]Student loans are not for suckers. I went to state-run university. I studied all of the time, worked roughly 20-30 hours week and received student loans to supplement what money I made to pay for my college expenses. Loans were also part of the monies I used to pay off my schooling. And, I paid off those loans within 6 years of graduating.
[Mermaid]Do you think education is expensive in the United States? What do you think can be done to make sure everyone get a *well-rounded*, meaningful education without selling their soul, kidney or other vital organs?
Re:Student Loans are for suckers?
« Reply #7 on: 2003-02-27 16:04:50 »
[Casey] Grants may be in decline because they've slowly been cut out of educational funding. But, you cannot pin-point the blame on the federal or state levels of government. They're more people vying for dollars from our state and federal governments. Students, faculties, and universities MUST make it be known that the further decline of monies set for grants cannot continue. To do nothing is to weave your own web...and get trapped in it. [Hermit] Federal spending on education has dropped in real terms by 80% since the 1980s. If you want to know why, 20% of the total Federal budget now goes to past military exercises - and a further 27% to current military expenditure (refer e.g. http://www.warresisters.org/piechart.htm). As for the claim that more students are seeking funding, it is interesting to note that more than 80% of all black students are now completely ineligable for any federal college assistance (and an increasing percentage of white students too) due to drug related convictions. Ask not where funding for schooling has gone, it has gone to Iraq (And Afghanistan, etc. etc.). Consider that the very conservative $150 billion we have spent so far getting ready to whack-Iraq could fund:
Aid for 4.4 million low-income college students
Summer jobs for 2 million youth per year
Head Start for 1.4 million kids
Tutoring for 9.8 million students
Treatment for 30,000 drug addicts per year
Childcare for 2 million families
. The above not being likely to turn a profit for the hangers-on of the incumbent Washington un-regime, I doubt that this seriously worries any of them.
Meanwhile, every dollar gong to education is being applied more and more to physical plant and support services, less and less to education. And US schools turn out illiterate preprogrammed yes-men (and women), instead of thinking, questioning people.
No Jane, the US need not particularly fear external enemies. The US empire will make itself irrelevant all by itself.
A few interesting asides. At the start of the 20th Century more than 96% of Americans were functionally literate. Today more than 80% are not. In the late 1980s, Iraq spent more per capita on education than the US ever has - and provided it equally to males and females. Of course, today their money is needed for other things. UNESCO data suggests that Europeans spend less per capita on education than the US does even though anyone halfway intelligent living in Europe can choose to go to college - at state expense - and most do. While International test results suggest that Europeans receive a much better quality of education (at all levels) than almost any non-homeschooled Americans (who tend not to receive Government assistance at all). Funny old world.
But the premise of the original article is false too. The $1 million number quoted is for students taking a soft science or associate degree vs no degree at all. The difference between that and a hard science degree, or graduate degree in e.g. law, technology or medicine tends to be $2 to $3 million higher again. Which means that no matter how bad the debt-burden required, if living in the US and capable of earning a degree, one should try to earn an advanced degree. Even though, as at least one holder of a graduate degree has demonstrated here, such is still no substitute for "common sense" or good "basic education". But in the absense of both, it is better than nothing.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
Re:Student Loans are for suckers?
« Reply #8 on: 2003-02-27 23:39:02 »
Well said Hermit.
I wonder just how the world is going to turn out when the boys and girls of my generation start taking seats in Washington. That is, if there is a Washington left then. I don't think it is going to be too pretty.
Safe from the pain and truth and choice and other poison devils See.. they don't give a fuck about you, like i do. Just stay with me, safe and ignorant, Go back to sleep Go Back to sleep
Re:Student Loans are for suckers?
« Reply #9 on: 2003-03-02 12:18:32 »
Elvensage, are you still considering not attending university?
You shouldn't because you will limit yourself financially for the rest of your life, as Hermit has alreadt suggested with his post and the point he makes regarding higher ed degrees, ie. law, medical, or technical degrees.
Search for those opportunities (grants and scholarships) that have been discussed. They are out there but you have to do some research and dig around.
RE: virus: Re:Student Loans are for suckers?
« Reply #10 on: 2003-03-02 13:07:23 »
[Casey] Elvensage, are you still considering not attending university?
You shouldn't because you will limit yourself financially for the rest of your life, as Hermit has alreadt suggested with his post and the point he makes regarding higher ed degrees, ie. law, medical, or technical degrees.
Search for those opportunities (grants and scholarships) that have been discussed. They are out there but you have to do some research and dig around.
Also there are services online that will help you apply for scholarships and grants, such as www.fastweb.com (which is a free service but you'll get spam if you sign up, just a fair warning)
Safe from the pain and truth and choice and other poison devils See.. they don't give a fuck about you, like i do. Just stay with me, safe and ignorant, Go back to sleep Go Back to sleep
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I'm seriously thinking of dropping school just so I have enough money to live.
