False Equivalency 101: Springing The Student Loan Jailbreak

<"Boxed In":

The Reckoner>

<i.>

Student debt feels like the weather. Everybody talks about it -- and talks and talks and talks, and talks and talks and talks, and then talks some more -- but nobody does anything about it. That seems the case, now that we've passed the magical 100-day mark of the Biden presidency. 

President Biden has shied away from progressive calls to cancel $50,000 of debt per student. He's willing to write off up to $10,000, which would ease a third of the average student's debt load ($30,000), but hardly dent those of the average MBA ($66,000), PhD ($110,000), lawyer ($145,000), and physician ($246,000). Nevertheless, Biden has tasked Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to see if he can cancel student debt by executive order, via the Higher Education Act.

Time will tell if the Biden administration works up the gumption. Even so, his predecessor, Donald Trump, and former "Education Secretary," Betsy DeVos, postponed student debt repayment deadlines three times, as Debt Collective organizer Astra Taylor notes in her piece (see below). Though it's fine that Biden has extended the deadline again, to September 21, continuing "a flawed Republican policy is hardly a victory," Taylor states, in part.

Biden doesn't help matters when he suggests that struggling borrowers should rely on parents, or sell their homes, "a luxury those without intergenerational wealth cannot afford," Taylor scoffs. At times, his reading of the facts seems downright muddled, such as his willingness to tout options that fail borrowers, like the notorious Public Loan Service Forgiveness program, which rejected 95 percent of its applicants.

Student debt has reached alarming levels in this country. As of January 2021, 44.7 million Americans hold an estimated $1.71 trillion in student debt, or twice the total level of credit card debt. That's an eye-popping figure, fueled by extreme cases like Seth Koeut, a Cambodian refugee who convinced a federal bankruptcy judge in December 2020 to wipe out 98 percent of his medical school debt ($440,465).

What makes Kouet's case noteworthy, other than the mountain of debt that nearly swallowed him whole, is that he still got screwed, even as he dutifully followed the standard life script ("College pays off," "Education is the answer," yada-yada-yada). His educational odyssey included bachelor's degrees in marine biology and Spanish from Duke University (2002), and a stint studying clinical tropical medicine in Bangkok.

Koeut wrapped up his education at the for-profit Ponce School of Medicine in Puerto Rico, in 2010. But Koeut never gained a residency placement, something that happens to roughly 10,000 medical school graduates per year. He then worked a series of part-time McJobs (Banana Republic, Bloomingdale's, Crate & Barrel, dishwasher in a Mexican restaurant) before he finally threw in the towel in 2015, and initiated the long road to his bankruptcy relief. 

Yet students like Kouet often face a stunning lack of empathy. The Department if Education argued against clearing most of Kouet's debts by suggesting that he hadn't "given his best effort to find better employment." Thankfully, the court didn't buy it, as its reasoning made clear: "A medical school graduate who works as a parking lot attendant and dishwasher cannot be described as lazy." You'd think, right?

Howie Klein sums up the situation well in a post ("The Student Snake-Oil Scam") on his Down With Tyranny blog. Education used to be considered as a path to upward mobility, one that's turned seriously sideways, as Klein points out: "In the last couple decades, it has instead turned into a path to permanent debt penury and financial servitude." 

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The collateral consequences of that penury and servitude are endless, and well-documented. Debt-burdened graduates often end up postponing major life decisions like cars, houses and kids. Massive monthly  repayment schedules leave little or no room for necessities, let alone the serious business of saving for retirement. Only 33.3% of Americans finish their four-year degrees, yet even their future is hardly rosy, with so many jobs paying essentially the same as they did 20 years ago, as my comrade in arms, The Squawker, points out. 

Yet the same strawmen are still peddling the same tired arguments against canceling student debt, from the standard boilerplate line ("It would only help the rich"), to the speculative ("The federal government would lose too much money"; "It won't help the economy"), to the downright defeatist ("It won'f fix higher ed overall; it won't help those who didn't go to college"). 

I'd offer a simple rejoinder to all of those bromides: 

So...What? 

Even if any of them were true -- and they aren't -- do we really want to perpetuate a debt-based higher education model, with all the implied social costs? With so many millions struggling under crushing repayment schedules, does it really matter if they racked up their debts at a state school, or a private one?

We also need to deal with the "The What About?" argument, as in, "What about me? I busted my ass to repay my loans, why should I pay for everyone else who can't pay theirs?" That rests on the classic American notion of "bootstrapping" -- "I pulled myself by my bootstraps, so why can't you?"'

You know we've become a truly twisted society when we wax anxiously about, "What happens if we make life better for others?" Aside from the obvious rejoinder (Isn't that what government's for?), such notions rest on the premise that giving people support, no matter how badly they need it, makes them weaker and more dependent. Take them off the hamster wheel, and they might lose their edge. Or some crap to that effect.

<iii.>

But here's the rub. The loudest advocates of bootstrapping often had somebody else pulling the strings for them. Our sociopathic ex-President, Donald Trump, is the classic example. His wealth rests on the connections and money that his reptilian father, Fred, engineered, largely before his voice changed. 

When cash-strapped Donald entered the real estate game, his father set up the multimillion dollar loans that made his presence possible, and helped transform New York City into a giant Monopoly board, at its non-wealthy residents' expense. When Trump's dream of Atlantic City as a gamblers' paradise started going south, his dad jumped in, and discreetly bailed him out.

In other words, the price of admission for the rich and the mega-rich is way, way different than the rest of us: no bootstraps needed. For them, it's simply a case of making the right call, or flashing the right amount of cash, to make whatever headache they're facing disappear, as Lori Loughlin demonstrated, in showing her willingness to pay $500,000 to get her two daughters into USC, on the pretext of joining the rowing team.

These indiscretions earned Loughlin and her husband a mere two months in prison, plus the usual community service/supervised release model of legality, and $400,000 in fines, which they'll probably write off next year, as they move on to the next quarter of their lives. Their daughters remain enrolled at USC, they've never joined the rowing team, and while their various business ventures have been disrupted, they'll probably find someone else willing to roll the dice. No bootstraps needed.

Suddenly, the strawman argument ("But canceling student debt would only hurt you") looks a hell of a lot less impressive, if we consider one simple fact. We've been subsidizing the Loughlins and the Trumps of the world all along, for far too long. That should be reason enough to pull the plug on the edu-debt scam, and start over from scratch.

If nothing else, canceling student debt would provide a major stimulus in itself. Instead of allowing banks and the feds to skim off the interest, the money could actually go back into the economy, or the indentured edu-debt class could actually set some aside for themselves -- what a radical concept, eh? 

Again, time will tell if the political class finds the gumption to actually allow it, but we shouldn't wait for them anymore to find it. We've waited too long as it is. And not stop raising hell, publicly, privately and politically, until they do. --The Reckoner

Links To Go (Hurry, Hurry,
Before The Interest Rate Carries You Away...)
Admissionsly.com:
Eye-Opening College Dropout Rates & Statistics:
https://admissionsly.com/college-dropout-rates/

Down With Tyranny: 
The Student Debt Snake-Oil Scam:
How America Uses Education
To Expand Poverty And Hurt The Economy:
https://www.downwithtyranny.com/post/the-student-debt-snake-oil-scam-how-america-uses-education-to-expand-poverty-hurt-the-economy

Educationdata.org: College Dropout Rates:
https://educationdata.org/college-dropout-rates

MarketWatch:
Schumer: With Relief Bill,
Major Argument Against
Student Debt Cancellation "Vanishes":
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/schumer-with-relief-bill-major-argument-against-student-debt-cancellation-vanishes-11615903993

The American Prospect:
Six Stupid Arguments Against 
Forgiving Student Loan Debt:
https://prospect.org/day-one-agenda/six-stupid-arguments-against-forgiving-student-loan-debt/

The Guardian:
Biden Is Already Backtracking
On His Promises To Provide Student Debt Relief:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/feb/25/joe-biden-student-debt-american-students

Yahoo Finance:
Medical School Graduate Sees Nearly
All His $440,000 In Student Loans Discharged:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/medical-school-graduate-440000-student-loans-discharged-151422886.html

Unseen Skit #1: Academic Distraction (Take II)

<i.>

If you work in any creative field long enough, you're bound to have your share of offbeat experiences. About seven years ago, a close friend invited me to submit skits for a new comedy show airing in his city (Grand Rapids), right on the ABC affiliate, no less. That sounded better than the usual Craigslist crap ("WANTED: ZOMBIE EXTRAS for postnuclear romantic comedy. MINIMUM 16-HOUR SHIFT for weekend shoot. Must bring own costume and makeup. NO PAY, but free French Fries provided. GREAT EXPOSURE!"). 

I had one small reservation. "I haven't written any skits before. Well, at least not since our college days," I pointed out.

My friend just laughed. "Doesn't matter. You'll be on a writing team that'll hammer it into shape for air. You'll need to come up at least every couple of weeks, though, if you want a voice on the show. What d'you say?"

"Oh, what the hell," I shrugged. "Can't be any harder than learning the guitar, right?"

"Now you're talking!"

I felt the smell of promise in the air. Who knew where this idea might lead? I'd done the usual public access-type stuff in college, but this proposition sounded like a major step up from that era. Hell, who doesn't want to be on TV, right? Only the reluctant, and how many of those Greta Garbo wannabe types are working nowadays? Your 15 minutes of fame just might pay a few of those pesky bills.

<ii.>

I duly gave up a couple of late nights, ending up with the first attempt that you see below. (I'll post the other one when I get a free minute.) I had no ideas about "proper" script format. (See, show biz in general -- and Hollywood, in particular -- works like the Supreme Court. If the margins aren't just so, all the content isn't properly centered, and so on, they don't have to read it, apparently). 

I decided not to worry about such issues. As my friend noted, a team would polish whatever I did, so I didn't plan on getting too attached to whatever words finally got past my brain,This effort, "Academic Distraction," sends up a certain sort of low-budget ad -- one you may see running today -- from a certain company that claims to match students with potential college choices. For free, no less. Who could object to that?

But when you type in your area, the only choices that pop up are for-profit colleges -- think University of Phoenix, and so on -- whose charges are way more felonious than their two- and four-year counterparts. That spelled comedy gold to me, especially if I could link that little glitch to the sprawling student debt explosion. 

Takes I and II focused on the guitar hero living in his basement, with a parody of the theme song. That seemed less inspired than the idea of said guitar hero trying to raise his student loan payments by busking, and running into some old buddies on the street. I couldn't write too many lines for them, since I only had about five minutes to get the point across. But this version (posted below), I think, gets the point across pretty effectively.

Sadly, I've never actually seen this effort, nor the other one that I wrote ("Flags Of Unknown Nations"). Shortly after I submitted both skits, my friend indicated there'd been some sort of turmoil -- the usual "creative differences" chestnut, I reckon -- leading to a mass walkout off the show.

Still, both skits had aired, he reassured me, though he'd had to make a few changes of his own. Apparently, some people thought they were too political -- which makes sense, since the show aired at 3:30 p.m., a slot that's typically set aside for light entertainment. "Hey, if all we've done is crack one fart joke after another, not much has happened," I told my friend. "I did my best. After all, I'm learning on the job here.")

My friend said not to worry, because the show would probably return with a retooled cast or format, so I might get another crack at writing sketch comedy. That didn't happen, but not for the reason you'd suspect. Our efforts coincided with those brief halcyon days of Michigan's subsidized film program, which led to my one (and only) experience, as an extra on a movie set . 

For further reference, see my post on this issue, "Michigan Kisses Off Its Creative Class: No More Film Incentives: https://ramennoodlenation.blogspot.com/2015/08/michigan-kisses-off-its-creative.html.  And oh, yeah, enjoy the skit. Such is life. -- The Reckoner

<Academic Distraction (Take II)>

(CUE:Hip-hop-ish intro, medium break beat. 

(WIDE SHOT: BUSKER w/guitar on grimy street corner, in front of standard issue grimy wall. A container w/a sign marked,"PLEASE HELP: PAYING STUDENT LOANS," is at his feet. His appearance suggests that he hasn't slept nor looked after himself well.

(He bends to check the container, and rattles it once or twice. It's pitifully empty, as the sounds make all too clear. 

(He frowns, sighs, stands up and begins to play over break beat and scratches.)

I went to high school, kept noddin' off

Then dropped out, my bad luck

There's five jobs for every one of you

Oh, my God, what'll you do?

Now I got referred, for free

To some for-profit university

I'm drowning in a sea of debt

For some career that's never paid off yet

I got hooked up for free

Through Academic Distraction

Took my eyes off the prize

Thanks to Academic Distraction

(CUT TO MEDIUM CLOSEUP: BUSKER ON STREET CORNER.)

BUSKER: Hey, remember me? The guy who nodded off in class, dropped out, ended up sleeping in the basement? Well, I never got to be a rock star. (Hits off random off key chord.) Tuh-wannng!

I'm still sleeping in the basement. (Hits another random off-key chord.) Thanks to Academic Distraction, I'm all hooked up...for 20-thou-plus in loans, plus all the double-digit interest rates you can eat!

It doesn't even feel like real money after awhile, but it adds up fast. (Tuning up dissonantly) That's why I'm on this corner, Monday through Sunday, trying to strum up enough pennies to pay that money back!

CUT TO: BYSTANDER who walks briskly at first, then stops to stare up and down at BUSKER.)

(CLOSEUP: BYSTANDER's hand briskly feeding the required coins into his tip container.)

BUSKER: Beats saying, "You want fries with that," right? 

(CUT TO: BYSTANDER #2, stopping right behind first one. He pauses, looks BUSKER over. He sighs, shakes his head and moves on.)

BUSKER: Oh, yeah, and don't even think about skipping a payment. They keep looking, for up to 10 years!

(LONG SHOT: BYSTANDER #3 stops to size up BUSKER's appearance. Thinking better of it, he too takes a step back.)

Hey, Jim, how are you doing?

(BUSKER offers to shake BYSTANDER #3's hand. BYSTANDER #3 shakes his head, and pulls out a fiver.)

BYSTANDER #3: Wow, never imagined I'd see you here. My God, what happened? (Drops fiver into BUSKER's container.) Oh, yeah. You'll be paying that loan till you're 100-plus. Well, good luck. Get yourself something to eat!

(BYSTANDER #3 hurries out of shot, and down the street.)

BUSKER: Hey, thanks, Jim! Much obliged! (Hits random off-key chord.) Well, I'd better get back to it. Every little bit helps, right?

(CUE reprise of song. BUSKER begins to strum harder, looking left, then right, for anyone coming into tip range.)

Got front-loaded, for free

Through Academic Distraction

Got tangled up in debt

Through Academic Distraction

The interest isn't over yet

Thanks, Academic Distraction

I haven't seen the payoff yet

Thanks, Academic Distraction 

(FADE to BUSKER reprising these next lines.)

I went to high school, kept noddin' off

Then dropped out, my bad luck

There's five jobs for every one of you

Oh, my God, what'll you do?

The Definition Of Insanity (America's Student Loan Bubble)

<Be Seeing You....>

<i.>
"Insanity: doing the same thing
over and over again and expecting different results."

<Albert Einstein>

Here's how it worked, once upon a time, for yours truly. I spent seven years between two different colleges -- starting at a small rural school often derided as "three buildings in a cornfield." To which I invariably responded: "It's a dozen buildings in a cornfield, actually." That experience took two years of my time. 

I then transferred to a Big Ten perched in my state's capital city (population: 130,000-plus then, 100,000 now). Alas, the new institution only took half my credits, essentially forcing me to start over academically....silly me, eh? Why hadn't I taken that issue into account? (On the plus side, it gave me a handy one-liner -- "Hey, there, I'm a second-year junior" -- depending on which friend I wanted to make, or woman I'd try to chat up.)

When I graduated, Communism was on its last legs. The Berlin Wall's future looked dicey, so the mainstream media plumped up the rosy glow of capitalism accordingly; the "giant sucking sound" of all that globalist outsourcing (as Ross Perot  would label it during the 1992 campaign), hardly merited a tinny whoosh in any headline writer's ear. With 40-plus years of Cold War paranoia fading into history, nobody wanted to hear such alarmist talk.

I graduated with $1,850 in student loan debt to my name. No, that's not a typo: that's $1,850, not $18,500. Though I hadn't lined up a job, and the thunder clouds of recession were gathering, I felt reasonably confident about the future.

Exhibit A: National Direct Student Loan papers for College #1, including (from left to right) the amount that I borrowed, when I borrowed it, and the dates of their credit to my account ($1,100 in all).

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Student loan issuers are notorious bird dogs: if you don't believe me, just scan the Internet. You'll find any number of outrageous stories about shadowing people at some relative's funeral, or phoning up a delinquent borrower's friends before a high school reunion, telling them that they're associating a deadbeat (nice one, eh?)...to name two examples that I've read myself.

I got a minor taste of this phenomenon when I decided to skip the whole post-graduate paper chase (as in, job, mortgage, massive debt load). Instead, I ventured overseas, and spent six months in the UK. During my tenure, my family indicated those bird dogs had come knocking: imagine their disappointment to find out I wasn't anywhere near their firing range.

Of course, this is the U.S. government we're talking about, and they don't stay upset for long. Eventually, as my sister told me (during our weekly transatlantic phone chat), she wrote on my behalf, and succeeded in scoring a deferment until I came back to the States -- a small favor that, in today's feverish bubble climate, is distressingly common, as the Wall Street Journal suggests.

According to the Journal, 43% of Americans borrowing from the federal government's main student loan program are either missing payments, or falling behind. The U.S. Department of Education reckons the total amount owed at $200 billion (and climbing) on its $1.2 trillion portfolio. 

One in six borrowers (3.6 million) have defaulted on $56 billion (missed a year or more of payments), while three million are running a month or more behind ($66 billion). An additional 110 million have cut a forbearance/deferment deal that allows them to temporarily stop paying due to an emergency (such as unemployment, notes the Journal -- always the master of understatement, right?).

Exhibit B: National Direct Student Loan papers that I signed for College #2, the high-profile state school ($750 in all). Apologies for the quality, but the paper has gotten a bit faded over the years (though not the memory, obviously!).

<iii.>

By any measure, those are scary numbers. However, the dialogue on this issue gets downright surrealistic, as the Boston Globe noted of a 65-year-old man, Robert E. Murphy, who's challenging the undue hardship test that remains the sole legally sanctioned escape from student loan debt. Murphy, a former manufacturing company president, is trying to shed himself of a $246,000 debt incurred to fund college tutition for his three children.

As the Globe reports, Murphy considers the debt an "undue hardship" since a) his job evaporated after his employer moved overseas 14 years ago (where've we heard that one before?), which b) depleted his retirement savings, leaving him c) in foreclosure. He and his wife are surviving on her $13,200  teacher's aide salary. What's that saying? Stick a fork in him, he's done.

A federal appellate judge sided with Murphy, saying, "If this [situation] doesn't constitute undue hardship, what would?" However, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court ruled against Murphy, saying he's healthy and well-educated enough to find a job. How a person past the wrong side of 50 re-enters the job market isn't clear. Even if he managed it, however, the meter will keep running on fees and interest, making it difficult -- if not impossible -- to catch up.

That's how a bankrupt, bedridden social worker saw their '80s-era loan balance balloon from $13,000 to $70,000 (to name one of several examples from the Reuters article). How defensible is it to shove people down these rabbit holes, especially when the "undue hardship" definition has remained largely unchanged for decades? That's like your local hospital basing its cardiac arrest treatment on '70s-era reruns of "Emergency," down to the suitcase-sized devices that its heroic paramedics lugged everywhere. (Suffice to say, we'd probably go elsewhere if confronted with such absurdities in real life.)

Apparently, these big questions don't bother the appellate justices, who are suggesting that Murphy settle with the Educational Management Corporation, the entity that the feds hired to fight him (presumably, all on the taxpayers' dime, though the article doesn't explain how much that little endeavor has cost).

Maybe he can bargain them down to $245,000, or $244,000, or -- if they're in a really generous mood -- $243,000.Why, that's a steal, right? You never know, I suppose. I just thank my lucky stars that my own educational habit never grew quite this large....but then again, it was a different era. 

A letter from College #1, acknowledging my clean slate (as of 8/29/91). Ironically, the more expensive institution, College #2, signed off five months earlier (3/22/91).

<iv.>

The saddest part of this whole mess, of course, is that it's not a mystery how we got here. As Reuters' article notes, college tuition has risen more than 900 percent since 1978, when Congress began making it harder (and then, nearly impossible) to discharge student loans through bankruptcy. By contrast, median male income has risen 165 percent, yet the percentage of Americans who hold bachelor's degrees has gone from 20 percent to nearly a third. Those statistics reflect how the mission changed from the post-war affluence of the '50s, when returning GIs looked for ways to make themselves more marketable, to a simple way of keeping young people off the unemployment rolls (as some of my professors stated, during an unguarded moment or two, back in the day ).

Even so, common sense alternatives do exist. We don't have to keep doing the same damn thing over and over (and thus, making the same mistakes over and over). Re-evaluating the hardship standard, and how it's determined -- as I've already suggested -- would be a start. With so many millions patching together part-time jobs just to survive, it's the least that we can do. How about capping interest rates, or at least tying the loan repayments to the type of job that you get -- as Australia does, for instance? (See the link below for an extended look at how the student loan system works Down Under.)

If nothing else, it's also high time to tell America's colleges and universities that they can't have it both ways anymore. For example, just 25 percent of U.S. professors are full-time employees. That leaves the remaining 75 percent work as adjuncts, with no benefits, no health insurance, no retirement, and (as the Sex Pistols said): "No future....No future....No future....for youuuuu!" In short, we need to tell them, quite forcefully -- and empathically -- that you cannot preach 21st century ideals of diversity, inclusion and openness, yet leave most of your workforce languishing in the 19th century.

And for those who trust the donor classes to take care of our business, I leave you with this quote, attributed to the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill: "Americans can always be counted to do the right thing....after they have exhausted all other possibilities." While it's doubtful that Churchill actually, "then he should have," as Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) jokes. At any rate, you get the picture....it doesn't have to be this way. --The Reckoner


Links To Go (By The Time You Read This,
Your Interest Rate Will Have Gone Up)

Boston Globe:
Bankrupt Duxbury Dad Battles To Get Student Loan Forgiven:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/03/13/bankrupt-dad-battles-get-student-loan-debt-forgiven/cYGo9MeCZ5hj1oPdCqezbO/story.html

Reuters.com:
Column: The Student Loan Crisis That Can't Be Gotten Rid Of:
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-student-loan-crisis-idUSBRE87E13L20120815

Slate:

How Australia Gets Student Loans Right:
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_bills/2015/11/australia_s_student_loan_system_should_make_americans_jealous.html

Wall Street Journal:
More Than 40% Of Student Borrowers
Aren't Making Payments:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/more-than-40-of-student-borrowers-arent-making-payments-1459971348

(As always....cut 'n' paste into your browser if the links themselves don't work.)

Notes From The College Industrial Complex: Edu-Debt Springs Eternal

High wire fencing on the playground
High rise housing all around
High rise prices on the high street

High time to pull it all down

White boys kicking in a window

Straight girls watching where they gone

Never trust a copper in a crime car

Just whose side are you on?
--Tom Robinson Band, "Up Against The Wall"

Whilst looking up some other potential posting topics, I came across this whopper from the Campaign For America's Future, which focuses on a little-advertised fact about our glorious federal government -- if you borrowed their money to finance your college education, you'll be paying into your elder years...and pursued into them, as well, if you haven't managed to pay off the loan. According to the report, which I've helpfully posted below, an estimated 760,000 households headed by someone 65 or older are paying off student loans. That's worth roughly $18.2 billion in debt.

Unfortunately, one in four of these households (191,000) are in default, which allows Uncle Sam to grab up to 15 percent of your Social Security check (as long as it doesn't fall below $750 a month). As Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) observes, "Garnishing Social Security benefits defeats the entire point of the program -- that's why we don't allow banks or credit card companies to do it." Well, Congress didn't allow any garnishments to happen until 1996 -- when the Republican-led Congress carved out an exemption for student loan debt, as part of its "Contract On America." Oh, wait, you mean the "Contract With America?" No, I think the other preposition fits better.

Imagine the sticker shock awaiting millions of retirees -- who shouldn't have to worry about being hunted down for decades-old debt in their golden years (theoretical or otherwise). Of course, America is virtually the only industrialized nation that insists on clinging to this Rube Goldberg for-profit model of education (although Britain is doing its damnedest to catch up with our example). Still, other nations seem to get by just fine without all the malignancies clotting our college and university system -- such as the bloated administrations who see no problem with condemning future generations of instructors to permanet adjuncthood...but I digress.

Of course, the other problem is that, while edu-debt is exploding, along with cost of living, wages and salaries haven't remotely kept pace. As a June 2014 article on Yahoo Finance indicates, the cost of tuition and fees has soared by 1,120% since the government started keeping track of these matters in 1978. And, as Dan Hurley, a policy expert for the American Association of Colleges and Universities suggests -- such figures often obscure the bigger problem: "Instead of young adults purchasing homes and goods and services, they're paying [for college], which doesn't generate any income for the country."


The grind of working pay off edu-debt and other cost of living expenses also chips away at the one of the most important -- and rarely mentioned -- aspects of the college experience, namely, exposure to people and ideas that could change your life. I met four of my closest friends in college: one has since died, but the others remain part of my life.  I wouldn't have met them anywhere else: need I say more? Still, I'll own up and admit -- hand on heart -- I wasn't necessarily motivated by whatever sheepskin I was aiming to get. I imagined college being something like the British art school scene of 1964-65...with the Kinks, the Pretty Things and Yardbirds rubbing suitably inebriated shoulders...or the '76-'77 punk explosion, where you just might bump into Paul Simonon toting art supplies and canvases, looking for another abandoned ice cream factory or junkyard to turn into a mural. I thought it'd all be a lot like Carnaby Street, with myself and my co-conspirators plotting how to take the world by storm between rounds of some imported beer or other -- even, though, at times, I felt more like Catwoman's hapless victim, Carnaby Katz, during Batman's final soggy season on TV. Good, bad or indifferent, though, I wouldn't trade those times for anything.

Then again, I didn't have to work nearly the hours that grads face down these days...back then, jobs were basically excuses to pay the odd bill, or (better yet) buy silly punk records. If you didn't have enough money for those silly punk records, you'd hope to hustle some by cashing in your textbooks...or, as I eventually did...start can collecting, and turn it into a good side income. Some way or another, you found ways to get by, and get what you wanted -- I bought my first bass for $120, which I saved by dedicating one day of my weekly can collecting take to the cause. What students do now...or whether they could pull off similar scenarios...I can't imagine.

Given the one-sided nature of the present situation, it's not surprising that more and more grads are choosing to default (see the essay below)...though the bubble will likely have to swell quite a bit larger before all those greenbacks come bursting out of our undergraduate equivalent of Mount Vesuvius (or is it more like Krakatoa?). And that's before we even get to the other big questions that the Campaign's report raises: with fewer and fewer jobs requiring a four-year degree, should college be the automatic choice for everyone? More to the point, how do we force a greater degree of accountability from institutions that fight their workers as hard as a ninteenth century robber baron? Who knows -- the "Free University" idea of the 1960s looks better and better all the time. Giving such concepts a bigger stage could only improve the present system...even if our friendly neighborhood banker is dead set against the idea. --The Reckoner

And I said,
Look out, listen, can you hear it:
Panic in the County Hall?
And I said,
Look out, listen, can you hear it:
Whitehall (got us) up against a wall
They got us up against the wall...

Links 'N' More (Click 'Em Before
They Jack Up Your Tuition):

Tom Robinson Band: Up Against The Wall:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ9qR7CMCvo

Campaign For America's Future:
Haunted By Student Debt To The Grave:
http://ourfuture.org/20150728/haunted-by-student-debt-to-the-grave

Salon.com:
College Is Ripping You Off: http://www.salon.com/2014/10/01/college_is_ripping_you_off_students_are_cash_cows_and_schools_the_predators/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

The New York Times:
Why I Defaulted
On My Student Loans:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/opinion/sunday/why-i-defaulted-on-my-student-loans.html?_r=0

The Wall Street Journal:
$555,000 Student Loan Burden:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703389004575033063806327030

Yahoo Finance: The Daily Ticker:
College Costs Unaffordable For Students:
https://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/college-costs-unaffordable-for-students-174357548.html

So Much Debt!

Regarding my last post, notice he is now in the place where he has to say PLEASE GIVE ME A JOB! What if the bean counters say NO? The colleges are busy teaching underwater basket weaving and theory rather then any actual SKILLS. Remind your young people they need to be able to sell a skill that no one else can do where there is actually DOING not just theory and putting those things into practice!---The Squawker

College is a Racket!

Now that information is free via the Internet and even your local library, why are young people being forced to spend tens of thousands of dollars a year to have information spoon-fed to them?

I dream of a new movement of lecture societies, apprenticeships and people who are interested in educating themselves coming together, but it's doubtful it will happen in controlled America.

The colleges really are not that interested in teaching anything useful, outside of some highly technical fields where they are forced to put you in a lab, they'd rather indoctrinate you into being a good little consumer. College today, is basically a mercenary exchange where a young person exchanges a giant pile of money [or future debt] to receive a piece of paper that allows them entrance into the job world. Of course that said, that piece of paper is not guaranteeing that anymore is it? And how many people even from a generation ago, admit that their college degree was worthless as they most often ended up doing things like flipping burgers, cleaning toilets or telemarketing that had nothing to do with those 4 years of sitting in class?

I remember my alma-matter, and while in the late 80s they built endless million dollar buildings including a new retrofitted sports arena, they had their hand out for an endless array of tuition bills, incredible fees, and more. My own parents resented me as they took out a loan for my education to pay a portion of it, I paid the rest, and that lauded higher paying job after college never showed up. Of course my health issues were interfering by then. I remember working in the college dorm cafeterias putting cookies on heavy trays and making sandwiches for fellow students for three and half years to meet my expenses, getting the huge tuition and housing bill that zoomed up way past the rate of inflation. Summers were spent in a variety and mixtures of day care centers, factories, camps, and restaurants. The money from my months of summer work would vaporize immediately upon the dawn of September.

More then a couple times, with my dorm bills late, I went to class receiving notices, that I could be evicted but would get them paid just in time. By the way, I looked up what the kids are paying now, everything is THREE TIMES the amount I paid, why doesn't anyone ever question how much it all costs?

The phrase money hungry does not even do justice for the lust for cash, my alma-mater had. Every misdeed meant a giant fee. Even buying books could break you for a semester, I bought all used and even in a few classes was so broke, I had to borrow other people's books. It was good I read fast. Even that could cause one to lay down 300 bucks in one day. Some of my classes required supplies too, and often those came too dearly as well.

Even applying for a teaching job in a dead market in 1990, cost three dollars for every school to send out credentials. [You weren't allowed to make your own copies and the schools required the information to be sent from the college]. Three dollars doesn't sound like too money, on the front end, but just think applying to a mere 10 schools means 30 dollars. Then add on even more costs if you want to go out of state for a teaching job, back in 1990, $150-300 dollar was the cost for a teaching certificate. I do not want to know what it costs now.

The whole system was designed to pick my pockets from 1986-1990 and leave me without much in the way of a real living wage or future. In my case, I lost out on regular teaching jobs due to declining health--my state required medical exams of would be full-time regular teachers at the time. I would spend years piecing together substitute teaching jobs, with other part time jobs. So I got to be in the schools, and had a well paid part-time alternative school teaching job, that lasted for a few grant based years but was it all worth it? I would say "NO!" without hesitation.

While I went to an elitist suburban high school in the early 1980s, which put down the blue collar crowd, their main focus was to teach us the anti-ethics of that then go-go time. A decent Vocational Education probably would have made things a lot less stressful on me. Perhaps if I had gotten a job with actual medical insurance, disability could have even been averted.  Back in the late 1980's I would have been better off buying a small house for $40,000 and enjoying life rent-free rather then seeing it all burnt to a crisp with nothing to show for my efforts except a piece of crispy paper encased in an "6 x 8" faux leather cover.

In my case, I could get a few day-care jobs and $67 bucks a day as a substitute teacher but that was about it. I was left living the rented room-boarding house life and out of milk crates for years, the poverty would not improve, it would only worsen. Out of my graduating class, I knew only ONE person who got a regular teaching job, and their parents had connections to people in the school district and they were able to get a Master's Degree. The rest as the Baby Boom teachers, held onto their jobs with an iron grip, disappeared into a variety of alternative schools, Montessori centers, residential homes, day care and substitute teaching. The promised wave of teaching shortages never came and then the school lay-offs and hiring freezes had already begun.

Later I would go for a paralegal degree, thinking it was more stable and easier on my health rather then the physical rigors of teaching, by then I had specialized in the troubled and violent youth market to stay employed. However the worries about the hordes of unemployed lawyers taking the only jobs available nibbled at the edges of my mind. I would be forced to move to avoid homelessness, taking a residential care job out of state, not realizing the money-hungry colleges would deny all credit transfers, to make my completion of this post-baccalaureate  degree even with only two classes left impossible. Later I would return to my former state, would do an internship once a week fitting it around being disabled, and would be denied due to the passage of too many years and told I would have to start from English 101, bachelors or no bachelors, talk about the lust for cash determining their decisions.

College has become one of the biggest rip-offs on the planet. I even realized to my horror, as I grew older and more wise, away from my start of college at the age of 17, that I learned far more for FREE, outside of the classroom just from having a love of libraries and reading non-fiction. There I could learn things outside of being indoctrinated, and so much college was absolute nonsense--- goddess worship in women's studies classes writing a paper about whether you were an Aphrodite or other Greek goddess, art classes that taught absolutely no real techniques or craftsmanship-paint your "feelings", history classes, that were so superficial, and never asked any real questions, education classes with weird experimental group-think stuff taught for future indoctrination of those younger then you. I'll admit my class selections could have been better but what did I know at 17? One got the idea that education wasn't about real thinking but just adopting the twisted world view of out of touch professors who still thought it was the late 1960s.

Even as I started being a teacher, I had to study up quick to go survive in the classroom and write some actual realistic lesson plans. My life was spent in a fury at the library, learning what all those thousands of dollars hadn't bought me.

 Think about this is college really paying off for young people? or is it really enslaving them? Just to remind people, I do think education and learning are good things, but what happens when it becomes abused for a captive audience to get that piece of paper even just to make a living, and those who run the system make that piece of paper harder and harder to get and more expensive? Something is very wrong with that picture.

Watch this video to figure more of the college game out.



If you are young and reading this rethink what you are being told and the automatic go into debt formula. Don't believe every word your high school guidance counselor tells you or all those fancy brochures that sell college to you. Make sure if you do go to college, that you enter a field that gives you a fighting chance of a living wage and a job when you are done. If you are a parent, make sure to discuss this with your child and don't think protecting them from how hard it is to make a living will do them any favors. Tell them how the system really works. Tell them what happened to their older cousins or uncles and aunts, try and break through the youthful idealism that tells them, "it won't happen to me!"

College may pay off for a few still, but at least go into it with your eyes open.--The Squawker