Posted on 01/30/2016 7:31:23 PM PST by TigerClaws
Every once in a while, when Iâm feeling overwhelmed, I watch college commencement ceremonies on YouTube.
These rituals remind me how perverse our higher-education system isâand 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!
Iâm a consumer of those vacuous platitudes and a victim of this system. After finishing my masterâs degree in 2008, I found outâas in, I didnât already knowâthat I had $200,000 in student debt.
Some well-paying professions might make this amount manageable, but for a bioethicist like me, itâs been crushing. Many things had to go wrong for this to happenâor right, if youâre 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 businessinsider.com ...
Probably should have taken an accounting elective class.
A college graduate who just discovered all the debt he’d run up signing all those promissory notes for the last four years? What Bull. Nobody’s that dumb! Nobody.
Is a Bioethecist a Biochemist with ethics? Or, is it a Biologist with ethics?
I don't see too many poor plumbers, electricians, painters and carpenters.
In fact, I don't know a single one who is on the dole.
Leni
If you are not smart enough to understand loans and interest rates, you really should not be in college. At the very least your parents are not smart enough and should be paying for the loans if they encouraged you to get into that much debt.
And, since he now appears to work for the NIH, why do 70,000 of my tax dollars go to this idiot every year?
Hilarious but spot on.
If students think a college education is expensive now, just wait till it’s free. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
Actually, a Bioethecist is someone who will chair your Obamacare Death Panel.
$200,000 is a lot of beer.
“When I got out of the military in 1985, I was debating a four-year college but ended up going to a 9-month technical (trade) school instead, as I wanted to get myself into the workforce in a skilled position as quickly as possible.”
Yep, I went to TCI in West Haven, CT. Class of ‘84. Best decision I ever made. I also remember a school by the name of The Connecticut School of Electronics at that time.
Boo hoo! Young people? Master's degree, typically, goes to someone over 23. Old enough to do the math.
I'm younger than 23. I went to work instead of college, and I've never "abandoned my education." I have no debts. I haven't been suckered into anything "exploitative." Got no mental distress. I participate in the economy, making money and investing it sensibly.
And by the way, you did not delay important life decisions -- you made the important life decision to go to college. Smart enough to get in and yet dumb enough to sign on to massive debt, you were. Smart enough to earn that post-grad degree and yet boneheaded to have overpaid so much for the sheepskin wall art.
https://www.google.com/search?q=bio+ethics&gws_rd=ssl
"Racking up $200,000 debt for a Bioethics degree is no way to go through life, son."
Well, the world needs ditch diggers too.
Has a masters degree and cant do basic math? someone else signed the loan papers? he has total amnesia? i dont understand how one can just one day “discover” they have amassed a large amount of debt.....
No, you participate in the modern economy alright. Just that your participation is extremely limited to debt repayment. The kings and queens of government bureaucracy and universities get very high salaries, and get to use your money to fully participate in the economy.
Wonder why the government under King Barry sought to fire all private student loan facilitators, and bring all student loan debt under the Treasury? It was for Obamacare, so that “profits” from student loan repayments would help pay for Obamacare.
Just as the debtor is slave to the lender, so our college students are slave to the federal government.
Very intentionally by the socialists.
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