Posted on 10/26/2007 6:49:11 PM PDT by VA Voter
I am 24, live with my parents, can’t find work and am floundering in a sea of debt five figures high. I think of myself as ambitious, independent and hardworking. Now I’m dependent, unemployed and sleeping under the same Super Mario ceiling fan that I did when I was 7.
How did this happen? I did what every upstanding citizen is supposed to do. I went to college. I took out loans so I could enroll at Alfred University, a pricey private school. The next year, I transferred to the more finance-friendly University at Buffalo, where I could commute from home and push carts part-time at Home Depot.
I related my forthcoming debt to puberty or a midlife crisis — each an unavoidable nuisance; tickets required upon admission to the next stage of adulthood. But as interest rates climbed and the cost of tuition, books and daily living mounted to galactic proportions,
I realized this was more than some paltry inconvenience.
Upon graduating, I was helplessly launched headfirst into the “real world,” equipped with a degree in history and $32,000 in student loans. Before ricocheting back home, I would learn two important lessons: 1) There are no well-paying — let alone paying — jobs for history majors. 2) The real world is really tough.
Desperate times called for desperate measures, and I had no intention of living in a society that was as unfair as this one. To seek a haven devoid of the ruthless 9-to-5 ebb and flow of contemporary America, I moved to Alaska.
As a liberal arts major, I dreamed of making a profound difference in people’s lives. Instead, for a year, I lived in Coldfoot, a town north of the Arctic Circle that resembles a Soviet Gulag camp. My job as a tour guide for visitors temporarily alleviated my money woes because it provided room and board, but when the season ended and I moved back home, I was again confronted with the grim realities of debt.
Desperate, I browsed through insurance and bank job descriptions. I had hit an all-time low. Could I surrender my soul for health coverage and a steady income? Could I sacrifice my ideals by falling into line?
Suddenly, living at home didn’t seem nearly as degrading as selling out. But sadly, other graduates don’t have any choice but to work for temp agencies and retail stores to eke by.
That’s the tragedy of student debt: it doesn’t just limit what we do, but who we become. Forget volunteering. Forget traveling. Forget trying to improve your country, or yourself. You’ve got bills to pay, young man.
Unfortunately, the recent passage of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act doesn’t portend that times are a-changin’. The act reduces interest rates on Stafford Loans and increases Pell Grant awards. Whoopty-do.
There’s no question that this is a step forward. But we’re still talking pennies and nickels when we need to completely revolutionize the government’s role in financing post-secondary education.
College is a wonderful experience and something every young citizen should pursue. But without help, a college education is becoming an unaffordable rite of passage and a privilege of the affluent.
My loan payments can’t wait much longer, and soon I must leave home to find work that doesn’t compromise my integrity. Although I sometimes wonder what it would be like if I had declared as an accounting major and got a cushy job punching numbers somewhere, I’ll take my history major, my debt and my mom’s cooking any day of the week.
Ken Ilgunas, who lives in Niagara Falls, fears college is becoming unaffordable for most Americans.
“Well, go eat crap, you pathetic pink-o.”
What follows is the lament of a young, conservative history professor.
So many on this site tend to view education as field beneath them. Fine.
So these folks tend to denigrate those of us who work in education, social sciences, etc. The problem with this is that this tends to shift the ideology of the social sciences to the left, that is, smart young conservatives who listen to your advice will only chose degrees that lead to financially rewarding careers, rather than face the challenges of a demanding but not particularly financially rewarding profession.
So then we end up with history departments like mine, where there are 3 Communist, 7 socialist, 2 Anarchist and a token Republican. And my friends on Free Republic wonder why academia is infested with loony liberals.....
If this young man were willing to work, he would find a job. The fact that he didn’t get a degree in engineering, law or business is the least of his problems.
But go right ahead, mock teaching, make fun of “stupid history majors”, the university system, the social sciences, etc. And you will continue to surrender academia to the left.
For me, I’d rather encourage young conservatives to teach, research, write, and retake our education system. Even if that means they can’t drive a car as cool as you...
Keep up the good work, Will. Keep encouraging 'em. If there's anything this world needs, it's wise teachers--and expecially on our college campuses!
Another thing. (This is not for you, Will, but for everybody else out there.) My mother taught me something important.
She was born with a silver spoon in her mouth, but before she could go to college, her father--a highly promising attorney--succumbed to alcoholism and dragged his family through hell--and also through the slums of several cities while he was at it.
She wound up sacking groceries.
She told me this: "Any honest work is honorable."
She did manage to complete one year of college.
After she married my father and had children, she went back to college, at night.
She worked hard. My father, who had not finished high school, helped her. They both worked hard.
My father died while I was still a kid.
My mother persevered--though it was very hard and we had very little money. We were quite poor.
When I was a senior in college, she had two courses to complete before getting her college degree: chemistry and physics. She flunked physics. She didn't think she could pass either one. She had very little self-confidence.
I told her not to worry, that I had studied both chemistry and physics in high school, and that, after I graduated from high school, she and I would enroll together in the nearest college, and I would get her through those two courses.
I did.
Every night, all summer long, I sat there with her. I would read a paragraph, and explain it to her. Another paragraph, and explain that.
I really learned chemistry and phisics well.
And she earned her college degree.
She could not have been happier or more proud.
Neither could I.
If I can do it--anybody can.
My father often said this to me. He taught it's not the job that's important but how well you did it. He'd like to say, "You know, a good janitor is more valuable than a bad surgeon."
We can be happy and proud to be a part of the Great American Bourgeoisie. I certainly am. And our opportunities are literally unlimited.
His plight is further complicated by the decay of the Northeast manufacturing base that used to be a source of jobs. Erie County/Buffalo has lost a lot of manufacturing over the years and the job market is very competitive there. Those who have suggested vocational-technical training as an alternative to liberal arts made good points.
Sadly, his plight is shared by too many in his age group. At least he actually graduated. Many have the debt but no degree. Many also have significant ($10-20K) of credit card debt.
Anya Kamenetz has chronicled this in her recent book, Generation Debt. Most of the young people in these situations are there because of poor choices. That said, the privatization of many of the student loans and rapid escalation of interest rates when these folks miss payments can easily cause $40-$50K in debt to balloon to $150-200K in debt in a few years.
It is too easy for these young people to make imprudent choices and get stuck in a hole so deep that they can not climb out. There are documented cases of colleges using bait-and-switch on loans and encouraging students to sign loans that they have little potential of paying off. The whole situation reminds me of a quote by P. T. Barnum - "There is a sucker born every minute and two to take them." It is sad to watch.
The solution is for parents to train their children to make good financial decisions. They need to teach them never to sign a contract they don't understand. They need to train their children to seek counsel from knowledgeable people who do not have a motive for financial gain as a result of the student's decision (beyond, perhaps, a fee for advice.) Proper choices throughout youth and into adulthood will minimize problems for them as young adults.
I’m beginning to wonder if having college become unaffordable might be a good thing. First, fewer kids will be indoctrinated by leftist professors, and second, they’ll learn to work for a living instead of being fed this nonsense that perpetual academia is somehow honorable.
why didn’t he check this out before he took all those loans and majored in someting he couldn’t get a job in?
And this loser didn't even make a hobby of it, he spent $32,000 that he didn't have to sit in the audience while a few 2nd rate pointyheads told him what they thought and he ought to think too.
Hit the used bookstores and a tenth that money will buy more history than you can read in a year from more good historians than any given college has in the entire department.
There’s no question that this is a step forward. But we’re still talking pennies and nickels when we need to completely revolutionize the government’s role in financing post-secondary education.
A new $11 billion federal subsidy to give useless liberal arts majors such as this whiner a further $1,100 a year in outright tax free gift income - up to $5,400 now - and he can't even say thanks. He says it's just pennies and he wants more.
I say if it's just pennies to you, give it back.
What a spoiled brat. He just found out that the real world is tough, and that a history degree won’t get you a job. He thinks that college is a constitutional right. What a jerk!
Always check your work too :-)
My daughter has a degree in history (Civil War) as well, despite my recommendation for another degree. She now works for a large insurance company as a fist line supervisor, had a husband and a son and a mortgage. She and her husband are Republicans.
Is that the real difference?
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