U.S. Student Debt Monster!
For graduates, student loans turn into an albatross
With tuition and interest rates rising, debts may turn some away from
low-paying jobs like teaching. By Chris Gaylord
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0517/p01s02-usec.html?s=hns
..............................
Anyone who has put students through college or has been a student in recent years knows that it is almost impossible for even relatively well off people to make it without accumulating massive debts. Needless to say such burden grads and others starting their careers at precisely the most difficult times as they are beginning families, trying to find decent housing, meeting medical expenses and all the rest.
The bottom line here is that it is virtually impossible with such debt loads to take on service jobs that do not pay huge amounts. Perhaps the double income of married couples helps, but I am not sure how much with the additional strain of starting families which generally means extra expenses in child care if two are working.
For the record, perhaps fewer of us could afford advanced studies in my day, but we certainly did not end our undergraduate years -- even on full scholarships -- with debts. Generally we could break more or less even. I suspect our academic institutions are putting more monies now into building programs, massive salaries for the corporate executives. I notice that New Jersey is now questioning the state university presidents' take there -- $300,000 plus presumably perks as well?
What I smell here as a legal philosopher with a specialization in property theory is a vast shift in the allocation of burdens upon students and their families. This does not bode well for our service areas -- or even maintaining the flow of talented people into particularly teaching careers, let along lower paid ones.
In addition extra burdens are being dumped on these same people. The U.S. is the only democracy among 28 comparable ones not to have single payer medical coverage. This is but one of the several additional hidden costs that are burdening our students as they try to start careers. Monies are being allocated rather to the ever more wealthy who are making theirs from stocks and real estate investments -- and the "death tax" -- if abolished would free those leaving more that $4 million to their heirs from recycling their ever larger fortunes.
One does not have to be a Marxist to see that we are reaching a stage where we may see the beginnings of an economic revolt -- even with our media increasingly dominated by the wealthy and the spins of the Richard Mellon Scaifes -- inheritors of vast fortunes -- who fund the right wing think tanks that plot such a growing discrepancy between poverty and wealth in AmeriKKKa. Growl!
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net
With tuition and interest rates rising, debts may turn some away from
low-paying jobs like teaching. By Chris Gaylord
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0517/p01s02-usec.html?s=hns
..............................
Anyone who has put students through college or has been a student in recent years knows that it is almost impossible for even relatively well off people to make it without accumulating massive debts. Needless to say such burden grads and others starting their careers at precisely the most difficult times as they are beginning families, trying to find decent housing, meeting medical expenses and all the rest.
The bottom line here is that it is virtually impossible with such debt loads to take on service jobs that do not pay huge amounts. Perhaps the double income of married couples helps, but I am not sure how much with the additional strain of starting families which generally means extra expenses in child care if two are working.
For the record, perhaps fewer of us could afford advanced studies in my day, but we certainly did not end our undergraduate years -- even on full scholarships -- with debts. Generally we could break more or less even. I suspect our academic institutions are putting more monies now into building programs, massive salaries for the corporate executives. I notice that New Jersey is now questioning the state university presidents' take there -- $300,000 plus presumably perks as well?
What I smell here as a legal philosopher with a specialization in property theory is a vast shift in the allocation of burdens upon students and their families. This does not bode well for our service areas -- or even maintaining the flow of talented people into particularly teaching careers, let along lower paid ones.
In addition extra burdens are being dumped on these same people. The U.S. is the only democracy among 28 comparable ones not to have single payer medical coverage. This is but one of the several additional hidden costs that are burdening our students as they try to start careers. Monies are being allocated rather to the ever more wealthy who are making theirs from stocks and real estate investments -- and the "death tax" -- if abolished would free those leaving more that $4 million to their heirs from recycling their ever larger fortunes.
One does not have to be a Marxist to see that we are reaching a stage where we may see the beginnings of an economic revolt -- even with our media increasingly dominated by the wealthy and the spins of the Richard Mellon Scaifes -- inheritors of vast fortunes -- who fund the right wing think tanks that plot such a growing discrepancy between poverty and wealth in AmeriKKKa. Growl!
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net
posted by Ed Kent at 8:13 AM
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