The Anvil of Student Loans

This week it was announced that student loan debt in America was at $1.2 trillion and climbing and debt default rates are skyrocketing. I have watched and listened to the squawking and anguish about the politicians not "fixing" this cancer in America, etc, etc.  I will create some skeptics with my thoughts on this topic but factor in having taught 7,000 college students in the last ten years so I feel that a viable factor for coloration of reality more than rhetoric and violins playing.

 

There are some questions that I believe must finally be asked as we look across the horizon as this cancer metastasizes along with the entire debt picture of our nation.  Keep this in mind for perspective, America's Gross Domestic Product is now less than the amount of money we owe. By any accounting definition, that is telling us clearly two things: our nation is bankrupt and worse, whomever controls your debt controls your future. So who is really controlling America's future? Yep, the nations like Japan, China, South Korea, etc that continue to buy our debt but that will soon slow and we will find ourselves in deflationary times again I believe. So the questions:

 

1. What is the value of a college degree?
2. Does everyone in college or wishing to really need to go to college?
3. BIGGIE; what do college students borrowing the student loans actually do with the money?
4. Does defaulting on a loan today affect students as it did their parents?

Four questions that I believe corral the real issues of student loan debt.  I can speak only for myself in what I observed far too many times in my decade of college teaching. Far too many students are in college that really do not need to be there emotionally nor from capability perspective. Many are there because someone said that must go but with no financial planning; that was my case so you can know. I was told by my parents I had to go to college but nothing was done to provide family assistance to met that challenge.  I saw young men and women in college when I attended that were there because they wanted to and felt they needed to be there. There was also the incentive of the Vietnam War as incentive to stay in college and work for young man of my era.  I see much less of that in my decade of teaching today.

 

I am convinced many are in college for some reason other than seeking a degree. Perhaps it is social, perhaps hoped for status, perhaps, etc, etc.  But many are certainly not there to invest themselves in the course work thus the course drop rates escalate at the first reality that a course actually requires work and focus and energy.  Classes are scheduled based too many times on how "easy" the professor is or how loose the attendance policy is assuming there is one to begin with which usually there is not for professors certainly do not want to push too hard or hurt some one's feelings!

 

When I see student loan monies too easily gotten invested in nicer cars, computers, clothes, socializing, drug use, etc, I cringe knowing that is what I call a disinvestment and that the probability of the student defaulting on those borrowed "fun" monies is great and predictable. Now mind you there are some great students that sincerely need to get a degree and certainly need the funding and are responsible enough to find a way to pay back the loans. But I believe that slice of the student population today is rapidly going in a wrong direction.

 

For me the most disconcerting facet of students I personally experienced is a blaring lack of focus, finding ways to not do the work and too, far too distracted with electronic gadgets, Facebooking in classes, watching porn on laptops during classes; see my point?  That is why we hear the hair raising stories of students getting their degree but cannot read it once it is handed to them. They have not been educated for they have chosen to "enjoy" the experience of college on someone else's dime with no intention of ever repaying the money back. That perfectly captures the entitlement mentality that abounds today; they are owed this because they were born; THAT is sad but oh so real.

 

My students reading this will attest to a person that I was a demanding, frank, encouraging, always pushing them type professor and I led by example and never minced words on expectations, demands and accountability. I had a zero policy on absenteeism and tardiness and failed students every semester for doing just that meaning not coming to class and routinely late and not investing in the course work. Those students that embraced my process were lifted in their own minds that this work is of value, my professor leads by example and he really cares about me now and my future. I challenge anyone to test this paragraph. 

 

Far too many professors are too focused on non-student education  and papers and writings and research to gain and maintain tenure. I personally believe tenure and protecting poor performers in academia is a worse cancer than student loan debt. Our students will get better when our professors and teachers get better and demand by example more from the student.

 

In closing, yes, the student loan issue is of mega proportion but it is always in far too many cases self induced financial suicide as students find readily available government or private loans to indulge in "stuff" and not paying for the sacrifice to get their education.  It is possible to go to college to get a degree and borrow not a dime and many do and those that do perform better than those there to simply float through college for five or six years changing major several times each time costing thousands more dollars.  Far too many times, of course, are single parent or no parent families from which these students come thus the student is not used to accountability nor a sense of worth / value of the cost of college.

 

I must put in here as well that the textbook industry is one of the most sickening components of the educational process.  Charging $300 plus for a single textbook is beyond atrocious which angers me only to watch this and then have the book revised in a year with minor changes and cost then $350 should be worthy of Congressional review. 

 

There is much the world can do about this escalating issue but there is just as much the student or potential student can do to help themselves.  Determining if a college education is a worthwhile investment is core and objectively assessing is the potential student is capable of college level work? Many are not.  Therefore, finding a skill and pursuing training for that skill should be  a first priority for there is nothing wrong about pursuing and perfecting a skill. Mechanics, for example, are a dying breed as cars grow more complex.  We need skilled workers and always will but we need fewer debt laden people in college not investing themselves into an academic process that more iand more are asking the question of people, was it worth it?

 

I think it time America stops and stop looking at college as a paradigm far too many can ill afford and ask some tough questions before the journey begins. The general population and We the Taxpayers who will soon be getting the opportunity to pay for these unpaid debts floating a high standard of living, in the short term, will be most happy. Wait, that sounds like America doesn't it ... living beyond our means, borrowing to keep it up, not worrying about repayment, wait, guess I better hush!