http://www.npr.org/2011/10/21/141564239/school-debt-a-long-term-burden-for-many-graduates?sc=fb&cc=fp
As I'll be graduating with my Master's this summer, it's a no brainer that I have student loan debt. I know how much I'll have too- even in undergrad I was always aware of what I was borrowing. I know that's not so for everyone...but it's hard for me to have sympathy for them. I guess what makes me scratch my head is that- why are we only blaming the loan companies? They are not saints by any means, I know- but why aren't people more upset with the colleges/universities? They're the ones who have raised tuition every year by crazy numbers (and yes, I am aware that public universities sometimes don't have a choice when the state continues to cut their budgets) and expected students to take on the burden. And of course we have, because we need an education to get a job and be "functioning" members of society.
But it can't be so easy- we can't just forgive loans. And boy, do I wish it was that easy. Because there are a lot of people with great degrees who are out in the world who don't deserve the debt they have. We need to make a lot of changes- as a society, we need to stop thinking that every person has to go to college. It's not right for everyone. But to get society to stop thinking like this, we need to have more jobs available to folks that don't require a college degree.
We also need to put caps on tuition- when you look at the data, it is scary to look at how tuition rates have changed in even the last 20 years. We need to strengthen programs like AmeriCorps- I loved my experience of giving a year of service to make my country a little better (hmmm...kind of bragging, but you get my point).
Right now, you can only serve 2 terms of service in AmeriCorps and I believe the total amount of loan forgiveness you can get (for the 2 years of service) is a little under $10,000. It's hard to entice grads to AmeriCorps and national service when, after two years of living in destitution and on food stamps, the amount of loan money you get is not much of a dent. Let's forgive more loans- and let people serve more years (you can serve as many years as you want, but you can only get loan money for 2 years).
As far as what to do with changing colleges and loan companies- ideas? I feel like I'm hearing of trends at colleges of hiring more and more administrative jobs...is that necessary? Shouldn't we be focusing on quality profs and students getting a quality education for their $$? There are many schools that are doing just that- and I applaud them.
It's hard to be 18 and realize that within four years you need to declare a major, that will set you on a track that determines the rest of your life. So yes, you will have students who may not pick the most "practical" major- but should they be punished? I know post graduation I changed a lot and it took many years before I realized what I wanted to do. And it wasn't easy- when I was working in schools I knew that I wasn't happy in my job as a para- because I felt like there was so much I wanted to do to make the school better, but couldn't because of my position/status. So I knew that I needed to do something else. I thought about a teaching license- but the sinking ship of education just didn't seem like a good risk to take. So I decided on Library Science- my history and comm background compliments it well and it also incorporates my new found passions for education and information literacy. I would have never known all of that at 18,19 years old. I feel like college has gone away from a time of self discovery combined with education and worldliness into a "I need a degree, what major/path will bring in enough money?"
Makes me sad.
Ideas for changing colleges:
ReplyDelete-Reduce administrative staff, as discussed. Employ more students in work study programs or as admin assistants to get that kind of stuff done.
-Take a serious look at faculty and administration salaries. E.g. at ISU, the engineering professors make pretty incredible salaries. Good on them, but it comes from the tuition pot, making tuition more expensive.
-It makes me cringe as a former engineering student to say this, but flat-rate tuition should probably go away and be replaced by a system where the tuition cost for a course is commensurate with how much it costs to offer the class. ISU has already done this to an extent by charging engineering and ComS students more, but we get charged per-credit regardless of the subject matter, which sucks. There's no good reason for English 101 to cost as much as a class requiring the maintenance of a lab, lab staff, and server resources.
-Treat cost reductions as cost reductions to students, *not* new budget money for new programs. I think this might be the most important one.
-Aggressivly negotiate grounds keeping and new building contracts to get better prices.
Fixing loans... what can you do besides making them cheaper? I would say that, like *every other kind of debt*, they should be forgivable if you go bankrupt. At a minimum. Financial aid offices should be required to act in the students' best interests and seek loans of the lowest cost, be required to present unambiguous, easy to read information about the cost of the loans, etc.
I would also add... despite bruised egos, don't be afraid to get rid of classes that few or no people take.
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