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Health & Fitness

Too Bigoted to Help Students

This post is addressed to the WSJ Opinion Journal video entitled "Too Big to Fail Students" featuring Mary Kissel and James Freeman. Here is what WSJ missed...

This post is addressed to the WSJ Opinion Journal video entitled “Too Big to Fail Students” featuring Mary Kissel and James Freeman.

http://www.frequency.com/video/opinion-journal-too-big-to-fail-students/...

Before I address the video content, I feel the incessant need to bring Mary and James up to speed.  It seems important to me to clarify that the college experience of 1987 is very unlike the college experience of 2013.

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“Between 1987 and 2009 US college tuition and fees increased by a staggering 326% (6.8% annually).  College inflation is also 3.6 times higher than average inflation and 3 times higher than the growth rate of US median income.”1

Here’s a chart from the Bureau of Labor Statistics comparing college tuition to healthcare and housing prices. Get a load of this visual.

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The typical amount of student debt nowadays is $25,000. But don’t be fooled- 25% of these student borrowers have loan debt over $50,000.2

 In the early 1990’s the average amount of student debt after school was $7,400.3

 That’s a difference of between $17,600 and $42,600.

Ok now that we’ve established basic information on today’s college experience, let’s return now to the video....

 Points to Address:

  1. Mary claims that any single graduate of higher education who has managed to pay off their loans is about to look like a fool (or “sucker” in her terms).  Why?  Because “government” is doling out “gifts” to today’s entitled post-grads. This gift takes many forms such as the Income-Based Repayment option or legislation like that proposed by Senator Warren to decrease student interest rates
    •  First of all, I should count those post-grads lucky who have managed to pay off all of their student loan debt- especially when we consider that their loans were most likely $17,600 to $42,600 cheaper than ours AND that they could use their degree to get a decent job after school. 
    • I would call today’s post-grads the “suckers”, Mary. Absurd tuition costs, a disgusting unemployment rate for recent grads/ the overall suspicion of employers to hire these grads and horrible interest rates in the midst of being fed the importance of college from birth. ....Suckers.
    • And let’s be clear: those “gifts”, that “entitlement” is a joke. Since when is it a gift to have so much debt that you have move back in with your parents? That’s humiliating, not rewarding. Since when is it a gift to fork over 50% of your income to student loans? Are you talking to us “entitled” people whose degree means nearly nothing and whose debt is so absurd it’s causing us to put a hold on all facets of life- from home-buying to building a family? Is 9.87% interest compounded monthly on over $50,000 my “gift”?  Wow.  I’m flattered.
  2. James says government is “creating more ways for people not to pay back their student loans.”
    • James. Surely, you’re confused my good man. It is a non sequitur that a REPAYMENT option equals yet another “way” for people to not pay their loans. Let’s start from the beginning James. Did you see that 326% increase in tuition costs? Did you see the difference in what’s due on those loans nowadays and how back 4 years ago it was already 3 times higher than the growth rate of a typical US income? 
    • It seems pretty basic to me that a student making monthly payments on thousands and thousands of dollars who already lives with mom and dad just might need a way to make his loan-ends meet.  It does not follow that having an Income-Based Repayment option means that students are sitting around waiting for free money to fall from the sky...much less that they’re looking to the government to “gift” and “entitle” them.  This is the same government that has offered no real help to students despite the increase in the severity of this crisis and the same system that has let our education system go kaput.  No James, we aren’t expecting much from Washington.
  3. James mockingly addresses the ease of taking out student loans for grad school or living expenses to which Mary responds, “What a deal!”
    • Sigh....We really can’t win with you people can we? What a deal?! Please, by all means, if you prefer our deal- Take it!!  Take the debt and the underemployment and the embarrassment of telling others you still live at home.  Take the stress.  Heck- go take out 5 student loans right now and live it up! Join us...we’re all having a grand fiesta with our loan money, why shouldn’t you?  ...Be home by 11:00 though, or mother might worry.
  4. Mary and James incredulously and mockingly discuss Senator Warren’s position on student loans.
    • You leave that nice lady alone! Now, I’m not going to sit here and pretend I know all about Senator Warren’s politics or proposals.  But one thing I can give her credit for is that she sees a problem and has proposed a solution. She notices that as much as you may hate those good-for-nothing post-grad rascals- they’re the future of this country and their education should matter.  Their crippling debt should matter. Decreased application rates for graduate schools should matter. 
    • Over a trillion dollars floating above taxpayers heads should matter. In fact, Mary and James rightly point to this issue. Where they go wrong, is in blaming students for it.  Sure, I have no doubt that there are some students out there that abuse how much loan money they’re taking out. However, it is incredibly illogical and somewhat ignorant to blame those few for the entire $1 trillion bubble and for jeopardizing American taxpayers. Scroll back up and read the facts again. Our system for funding higher education isn’t working. So let’s offer solutions to this system instead of bashing the future of America for crimes it isn’t even powerful enough to commit and projecting mentalities it does not hold. Let’s cut the nonsense and offer a constructive solution. 
1 Professor Jussi Keppo- “College Tuition- Explaining the Increases”. University of Michigan, 2009. 2 JP-US News and World Report- Money “How Much Student Loan Debt is Too Much”, 2013. 3 U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, National Postsecondary Student Aid Study: 1992-93 and 1995-96

 

 

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