Posted on 01/26/2016 10:39:02 AM PST by TroutStalker
My life and career have been scarred by the naïve exchange I made at college: an education of questionable value for a dangerous amount of debt.
Every once in a while, when I’m feeling overwhelmed, I watch college commencement ceremonies on YouTube. These rituals remind me how perverse our higher-education system is—and of the empty idealism that colleges and universities sell us: We are here today, donning our ceremonial robes and caps, to recite the traditional vacuous platitudes and wish you well in paying off high-interest student loans for which we are in no way held accountable. Let us now further romanticize our fair institution by singing the alma mater and conveniently forget that tuition has gone up 1,120 percent since 1978. Good luck out there, kids!
I’m a consumer of those vacuous platitudes and a victim of this system. After finishing my master’s degree in 2008, I found out—as in, I didn’t already know—that I had $200,000 in student debt.
Some well-paying professions might make this amount manageable, but for a bioethicist like me, it’s been crushing. Many things had to go wrong for this to happen—or right, if you’re a school or a lender. Although the hefty amount I owe is unusual, my experience is not: Motivated by an idealistic view of education and career and vulnerable to predatory, disingenuous, or at least negligent institutions, young people and their families too often take on large amounts of student debt. No matter how much they owe, the consequences of that debt can be outsized. These young people may have to abandon their educations early; pay back far more, after interest, than they took out; manage exceptionally exploitative loan terms; shoulder serious, chronic mental distress; delay important life decisions; and participate less in the economy than they otherwise would.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
Articles like this make me feel much better about my choices!
If he had gone R0TC, he’d be debt free now.
Cry me a river. Articles like this help reinforce my belief that nobody should be allowed past the 8th grade without a course in basic personal finance.
Not all of the education you get at college happens in a classroom.
The author has actually received quite an education about prioritizing and debt.
Monster search shows 2 jobs available nationally.
There is only one solution: those of us who went to state school and didn’t buy things we couldn’t afford have to pick up the tab for the Garners and those like them.
I once made a bargain I later regretted, too. Happens to us all. It’s called reality, bub. Nobody forced me to buy that car, just like nobody forced you to take a useless major in college. (Get over it )
If one of the democrat party communist candidates becomes president, we will be.
By the way, have you been to a college campus and looked at the living arrangements for students recently? They have campus housimg consisting of new apartments with granite counter tops. They are very comfortable, and I would assume, also very expensive. You would think that while they have little income and are making an investment on their future, students would look for every means of cutting expenses. That means not borrowing ridiculous sums of money for the wasted overhead of comfortable living.
I screwed up big time. I sent my son to college when I should have bought him a McDonalds.
Interesting idea!! Instead of shelling out six figure tuition payments and/or borrowing such huge sums for.college, buy a McDonald’s franchise!!! Help young people have their own business. That in itself would.provide them a valuable education............
According to this ethics expert his parents, grandmother and the schools allowed him to go astray.
Of course he admittedly had bad grades in high school but somehow thought if he went to an 'elite' school he too would become elite. Somehow he also thought if he got his Ph.D. he could get a high paying job in academia. He really is a moron.
He never mentions why he never continued to get his Ph.D. He probably washed out. If you're in a doctoral program and one of your advisors suggests that you drop out and go part time - TAKE THE HINT. You are NOT a strong doctoral candidate. LOL
The guy is a moron who thinks Elizabeth (lying indian) Warren will now save him.
so he whines about having to pay for his choices, and demands that WE, who did not make his choices, nor receive the benefit of that education pay for it?
OK. What subject matter did he study?
I have never found the value of my education in science and engineering to be "questionable".
There is no profession, however well-paying, that makes a $200 000 debt at age 22 or 24 “manageable”.
I thought I had avoided all college loans (2 out, one freshman, 4 more to go), but I just found out that my daughter was “awarded” a loan for $5000 that it took me a week and four documents to undo.
This will get worse until someone puts a stop to it.
In the meantime, the lending entities and the colleges need to be placed at risk (as well as the foolish borrowers).
Reading crap like this, from these poor deluded no long term vision idiots, makes me smile at all those fellow former USAF members, who used their technical training, and afforded educational opportunities, to obtain their technical degrees BEFORE they left the military!!!
For example, the College Level Equivalency Program, circa 1978, allowed one to partake in scholastic examinations and attain up to 2 years worth of college class credits. An airman’s technical training, when weighted through the Community College of the Air Force, could attain another entire college class year’s worth of credit. That is a possible THREE YEARS WORTH of accredited college credits.
And all of that, while on active duty, serving in the U.S. Air Force.
No huge college debt was accrued.
I think it was a huge mistake to allow 18 year olds to sign legal contracts, of course in this case the co-signers enabled his ignorance.
MSM continues to pave the way for the Democrats to roll out a big Student Loan Forgiveness proposal this Fall.
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This is to give you folks notice that I'm about to weed through the comments and remove all personal attacks on the author that go beyond reasoned, respectful criticism. My strong suggestion is that anyone reading this should focus on being respectful when commenting.
-Slate Moderator
On a personal note, as a writer who does personal essays, they are incredibly nerve wracking and harrowing to do. This author is contributing something valuable to our knowledge of what it's like to live with student loans, and deserves our respect for having done so.