Posts tagged: debt
The expense of higher education rises with each breath I take. Even taking a course at the community college will probably set a person back around $800. Harvard and other private universities are surpassing many families incomes at $50,657 a year (this does not include personal amenities, school supplies, and even books which can run around $1500 a year). But even a degree at a public university, such as the University of Illinois (my alma mater), runs $15,000 a year. And if you are an ambitious student, as I was, joining the Honour’s College, going to NYC for the National Model United Nations conference, and studying abroad tack on loads more. Suddenly being a ‘trust fund baby’ doesn’t mean much - you need one in order to take on higher education.
The major problem with this is the tendency for US students to take out loans in order to make up the difference and wind up with debt they are unable to pay back with the realities of today’s job market. This can be particularly disheartening when noticing those who went on as entrepreneurs following high school and made a fortune from their businesses. Or, someone like Simon Cowell, who worked his way from the mail room to record producer. Bill Gates was a college dropout and went on to become one of the most successful people in the world.
On a side note, I find education, or at least a thirst for knowledge and the capacity to have a conversation that runs beyond food, weather and past experiences to be both a treat and a necessity for me to maintain interest.
The NYTimes reminds us that the US government has an increasing role in making higher education accessible. However, it is only available for students in low-income families, particularly those who have parents with less education than the median of the population. Middle-class families are subsequently missing out on the opportunities the government supposedly provides. This is where student loans become necessary. (A popular way to cheat the system at the start of the millennium was to get a loan for $50,000 and invest it in high yielding, yet safe stocks. Some of my coursemates from undergrad left quite wealthy by investing in Microsoft at the end of the 90s and pulling out at graduation.)
Those who are toughing out a pricey MA, such as myself, have started to notice that they aren’t getting job offers with improved salaries. I almost feel as if I were purchasing expensive travel insurance that I will never use (thanks for pointing that out, Richard Thaler). I have yet to attempt to enter the market, but no doubt with recent dips in the stock market, there is a laundry list of challenges ahead.
Some people have natural talents, like Oprah’s ability to connect with people, or D’s ability to drink copious amounts of alcohol and coax any man to take off his shirt. People with certain ambitions must pursue higher education. Those who are happy making ramen or selling balloons to children (what was the main character in Up? so cute!), don’t need university to be happy. And that should be our ultimate goal, should it not?
I’ve been mulling over the idea of ‘free’, a concept which Chris Anderson outlines in his book of the same title, and am particularly interested in the idea of free education. It seems to me, that there is a bit of a paradox when reviewing the specifics of the idea: education provides society with the means to pull itself out of poverty, as it gives the people the tools to build a better living environment. However, it has been the driving force for increased personal and state debt, it creates greater divides (particularly economic) and it reminds us that human beings have been horrible to one another since the beginning of time.
Free is of course, not free. At some point, someone made a sacrifice for something, whether it be time, money or effort, to provide you with free goods. And education is by no means free, even when a government claims it is free. It is free because a government collects taxes to provide public goods to create a better society.
I’m thinking of the concept of The University of the People - the free university that links students to NYU - one of the most expensive and prestigious universities in New York. What happened to allow the University of the People to link their classes to NYU’s? NYU tuition probably increased to deal with the increased library fees and improvements to technology to allow for smart classrooms. Still, an ingenius idea to spread a quality education to the far ends of the world.
I am not against ‘free’, but I do think that people need to understand that free is expensive for someone at some point. Think about the music, magazines, newspapers and books. What is the cost of them being free?
