I was chatting on Facebook with a buddy of mine the other day. The conversation was a lens into the world of college debt, my friend Roman talked about his frustration- he can't find a job, lives with his parents and has a heavy debt from college loans. He's an archetype of this generation in many ways; he's in his late 20's, has visited Japan, Philippines, Mexico.. etc- the type that is generally informed about current issues and indy music, and yes, a college graduate who can't figure out how to pay his student loans.
It may seem counter intuitive to say that college is not worth it since, hey, it's about the education right? But yes, even though it is about the education and the values obtained through out your college experience, it would be naive to say that your college education is not mostly, if not completely, about establishing a good career and making good money. Having said that, the general attitude amongst 20 something year olds with degrees who are: 1) unemployed, or 2) employed but getting paid very poorly, mostly working in a sector that they didn't go to school for, or perhaps juggling two jobs, is that things will eventually get better once the recession clears up. But, here is an interesting question that may need some serious analysis: What if college debt itself was a contributing factor to the recession? What if it is the recession?
I decided to Google it. I typed the words 'is college. . .', on the search engine and immediately Google gives me the exact words that I'm looking for on it's suggested query, it's on the top of the list, 'is college worth it?'. It's a hot topic. There are hundreds of articles. Somewhat of a fore site of what's to come.
Student loans have now exceeded credit debt loans for the first time in history at $830 billion dollars. But unlike credit or mortgage, student loans are unforgiving. They will be with you until the day you die if not paid off.
Jack Hough, the associated editor for Smartmoney.com gives an analogy during an interview with Fox Business comparing the mortgage bubble and stock bubble to that of a coming college debt bubble.
John Stossel of ABC 20/20 argues that most college graduates would already by successful even without the degree simply because they are already from the smarter student pool. It's those who are in the low 40% tile in high school who go to college that are in most trouble, getting a BA in 8 years instead of 4, getting in a lot of debt, who may not have the natural wit of getting a high paying desk job.
Andrew Hacker, a professor at Queens College, and Claudia Dreifus, a New York Times contributor and Columbia University Professor, in early August, published the book Higher Education? How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids. "Bachelors level vocational education is, I dont want to say a fraud, but close to it," Hacker said. The authors write about college tuitions more than doubling since the previous generation but providing lesser education. Mainly because the college industry is getting greedy making it common practice for university presidents to get paid million dollar salaries.
That craziest part about this scenario is that unlike mortgage debt or even credit card debt, where there is a certain amount of responsibility that falls on the lender- that might have been 'irresponsible' for buying a house they couldn't afford or maxing out a credit card when they had no money to pay it back. But what type of responsibility lies on a college graduate that did exactly what they were suppose to do, went for the top education and now is in debt for $120, 000 dollars with out a decent job. It brings our fundamental values as Americans to an even more questionable state of mind. In some ways even surreal, like . . .was I being lied to all along.
Based on the July 2010 BLS data for the unemployment rate, the numbers look like this,
Less than a high school diploma: 13.8% High school graduate, no college: 10.1% Some college or associate degree: 8.3% Bachelor's degree or higher: 4.5%
It's perfectly clear that people with degrees have the advantage in the job pool, but there are some concerns that these numbers do not address. For example, how many college graduates are employed but juggling jobs or in a job field where they cannot afford to pay off their college debt. Also, what about students who graduated with a BA, tested the waters in the job market, found no jobs so they went back to school living off their loans just to live as oppose to learn. Jack Hough believes that these numbers are deceiving. Hough believes that it's not about your job, it's about your lifetime accumulated wealth, so while you might have the job you also have the $100,000 dollar debt, as oppose to someone with no degree, a decent job, and who could accumulate wealth much faster simply by saving and growing in their trade.
The fundamental issue besides the debt factor, is not 'if college is worth it', because of course education is immeasurable simply by it's virtue, but the real issue at hand is, was college education overly amplified to this generation when they were in grammar school. The whole conversation teachers and counselors gave about getting a college degree in order to be successful made it a standard as oppose to a virtue of excellence, as was the case with the previous generation where only the exceptional went to college.
Now one might argue that in whatever job market, good or bad, a college graduate will always have the upper hand. But Joe Lamacchia, author of 'Blue Collar and Proud of it', argues that the demands are not in the white collar sector. He says it's actually the opposite. He talks about demands for electrician jobs, and machinery, amongst many others, jobs that average at a salary of 45,000 a year. He argues that part of the problem is that we need to go back to manufacturing and building things.
Sure the engineer, doctor and lawyer are going to have jobs, but those are only a few career options that traditionally have also been held by the top of the American educational pool. The larger majority of college graduates major in degrees that don't apply to any particular trait, such as Humanities, Art, or even History, making them not as valuable in the current job market.
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