Posted on 04/11/2016 1:03:32 PM PDT by pabianice
My student debt surrounds me like the construction on the University of Massachusetts campus; no matter how hard I try to avoid it, it shows up everywhere. It keeps me from getting to class on time, it ripped a hole in my backpack and it just puts me in a terrible mood. Like the construction, my student debt affects my every decision: what books I buy for classes versus which ones I can access for free, the amount of hours I work to pay my rent and if I can even continue my education at UMass. You can get rid of the Hasbrouck fence, but student loans are for life.
Lucas Coughlin, another Collegian writer, claimed in his op-ed on Jan. 26, 2016 that college should not be free. I disagree. Higher education is a right. Free higher education would take the burden off students (and non-students) while providing access to good paying jobs and economic advancement to people whose family wealth or personal financial circumstances do not allow them access to college without a life-long debt sentence. The total amount of student debt in the United States surpassed $1.3 trillion in 2015 and the UMass class of 2015 graduated with an average of $28,565 in debt. The burden of student debt makes going into the job market post-college extremely stressful.
The problem with higher education now is that it is becoming less and less accessible due to skyrocketing costs and wage stagnation at the time when more folks need it. Colleges need to be more accessible and turn into a viable option for students instead of something that’s immediately out of the question, or is an unattainable goal. Low income students and students of color are less likely to afford the rapid rise in the cost of higher education, and this limits opportunities for a huge number of potential college students.
To clarify, when I talk about free higher education, I mean completely free: four years of tuition-free public higher education as well as access to free food, housing, books and any other cost necessary. Right now, one-third of UMass students currently work on campus, which does not include the residential assistants and peer mentors in Residential Life or off-campus jobs. The total number of students who work at UMass is significantly higher, and many of these students rely on their jobs to stay in school. Even with those jobs, students are still accumulating debt.
If higher education were free, low-income and working class students wouldn’t have to chose between working long hours at low-wage jobs to help finance their education, which often distracts from and jeopardizes their education. Many opponents of free higher education argue that students need to “work hard” and “earn their way” for a mediocre paying job after graduation and that current college students think we’re entitled to everything. Last semester, I was working 40 hours a week – some labor unpaid – and ended up with the worst GPA I’ve ever had in my academic career. My student debt is around $45,000 right now, and I don’t know how I’ll be able to pay that off with an 11-percent interest rate. I am struggling, and many other students are struggling as well. How is that entitlement when we’re just trying to get by?
Coughlin thinks students can get their higher “education degree cheaply” in today’s society. He suggests students should “attend junior colleges for a year or two, or attend a commuter school.” But what happens when these students move to universities to complete the remainder of their four-year degrees? What I want to ask Coughlin is if he and his family always considered college as an option? How many hours does he work a week? Does he work for spending money or to pay bills? Has he ever had to decide between paying rent and textbooks? Does he struggle under the weight of loans he’ll carry for decades after graduation?
Now I ask you, Coughlin, do you understand why higher education should be free? Students across the United States are demanding it and taking direct action for this to become a reality. Higher education needs to be free so students can go to college instead of being funneled into low-wage jobs with little chance for economic mobility. Higher education needs to be free so undocumented folks, who can’t even access federal financial aid, can attend college without paying from pocket. Higher education needs to be free so students can finally become learners, and not consumers and products of a privatized system.
Erika Civitarese is a Collegian columnist and can be reached at ecivitarese@umass.edu.
Wow. Like many here, I closely followed the rise of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. The people of Venezuela, mostly the poor, held the same view as that cashier. And Chavez promised loads of free stuff from all the people he told them were ripping them off. The people elected Chavez in great numbers. When things started going bad the people people reelected Chavez.
I find it frightening that this same mindset is propelling Comrade Bernie.
College publications these days are laugh-a-minute concentrations of pure stupid. I need to spend more time reading them, just for the laughs. I’ll try to ignore the fact that these losers will be running things 20 years from now.
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Must be location dependent? Around here I see them doing the unskilled labor work, but most tradesmen are white or black.
Whaaaaa?
Is he saying, professors should work for nothing and the grounds should be cared for by gardeners who earn nothing, and textbooks should be donated free from companies, and the heating and Ac should be provide for free, no one getting paid, just slaves working to provide the students with an Ivy covered building as backdrop to bacchanalia?
How can we force university employees to keep working with no pay? Isn’t slavery outlawed?
Exactly. In smaller European countries, by 7th grade children are weeded out of the “college track.” Even if you go into business, it is a work study apprenticeship program. College is only for certain types of students, and there are very few majors. No basket weaving or gender studies. Most people don’t go to university — they go straight to an apprenticeship program in any number of fields. Sales, business, retail, even a lot of medical jobs are in apprenticeship programs. It is a much better system but no leader pretends college is good for every kid in the country. Because it is not, and that is fine. Kids should do what they love and what they are good at.
“There’s too much chest thumping on this thread by old timers who just have not paid attention to the sky rocketing costs of education.”
Understood. The problem is that too many students are in college who have no business being in college. College should be reserved only for those serious students with the mental capacity and discipline to achieve the higher learning. That would eliminate all of the nonsense degrees and the extensive leisure time that the little buttercups have to sit around and think about their victimhood. Also, there are many different careers associated with law and medicine that are not that expensive. Nursing, physical therapy, etc.
Amen, I agree.
mmm... there is still a great amount of training that colleges provide, many degrees. The problem is filtering out all the PC bullhockey that is simply brainwashing diversity and “inclusion” as a real tangible asset. It simply destroys critical thinking.
Not really, in the Great Plains most colleges and universities use the ACT instead of the SAT as the standard. If (for instance) any of the Ivies or the UC system wanted to have their own admissions tests they could and the supposed clout of the College Board wouldn’t do anything to stop them.
I’m sure he’s not thought that deeply, but had heard of countries where a university education is free, and no the faculty and groundskeepers in those countries are paid (sometimes very well). The thing is, wherever that is the case, there are rigorous entrance exams, so few students (by American standards) go to university. The costs are paid by a combination of income from endowments and government subventions — the latter justified by the argument that providing a university education to those bright enough to make the admissions cut is a public good, since it is training the future leaders of society (in the sciences, politics, the arts,...).
How much can be learned online for much cheaper, with less input from professors? We could have the very best teachers doing classes online, with different methods of testing knowledge and skill in various trades or philosophies. There is much less of a need to go into a University to learn, let alone live away from parents so students can “learn” to drink, smoke and have promiscuous sex.
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