I’m Not The Only One

After 11 years of attending college (I dropped out three times and spent a few semesters part-time) I finally earned my Baccalaureate degree last December. All I really have to show for it is a shelf full of books I was unable to sell back to the college bookstore that I’ll never read, a dozen or so notebooks whose few remaining unused pages serve as a memo pad and a shitload of debt.

I’ve always considered myself to be a fairly practical person, but choosing to attend college forced me to make some fairly impractical decisions. For example, attending classes full-time made it absolutely impossible to work full-time; my grades suffered the few times I did attempt to do so. As a result, I could only search for part-time employment and passed up several promising full-time positions.

Furthermore, throughout the time I spent in college I found it harder and harder to find gainful employment (not a coincidence considering the failed economic policies of the Bush Administration over the last eight years) and cut my living expenses down to less than $400 a month, using credit cards as unemployment insurance while I looked for work.

Fast-food chains told me I was overqualified to work there and that management positions were for those with previous fast food experience; some never got back to me at all. Retail work was my only salvation during my stints of unemployment. As the years rolled on and some of my credit accounts went into collection my credit rating took a turn for the worse. At the same time I took out a student loan for about $5,500 to live on, a comparatively small sum compared to that of other college students.

The only thing that convinced me to return to college was my passion for journalism. Without an undergrad degree, small neighborhood newspapers with shoestring budgets were the only publications willing to hire me, and even at that level I had to compete with recent college graduates for work. But now, the industry that for the last 20 years has forced itself to do more with less has tightened its budget even further, with many newspapers across the country selling out to a handful of large media conglomerates. An industry that even in a city as ethnically diverse as New York only hires minorities to satisfy the bare minimum Affirmative Action requirements.

Was I a fool to struggle through college and sacrifice my credit rating and earning ability for several years just to be able to look for work in an industry that doesn’t want someone who looks like me, or would give me a hard time to get into even if I was white?

In some respects, I do feel going to college greatly damaged me financially and probably did more harm than good to my journalism career.

Just out of curiosity, I decided to Google “college graduate debt” and found some interesting results:

“A new study suggests that rising tuitions, higher borrowing limits on government loans and a new wave of low-income students have pushed the average debt burden of college graduates higher as more students from all income groups borrow more — in some cases a lot more — to finance their undergraduate educations.” -USA Today

“More Americans are attending and leaving college in debt, according to reports released by the Democratic Policy Committee, the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges (NCBJ) and the Project On Student Debt, who also say in 2004, two-thirds of four-year college graduates had student loan debt, up from less than one-third in 1993.

“Reportedly, compared to a decade ago, more people are borrowing large amounts to pay for college than they ever have before, even after accounting for inflation. In 1993, 1.3 percent of graduating seniors with student loans owed at least $40,000 (in 2004 dollars). In 2004, 7.7 percent owed $40,000 or more.”-CNet

“For many recent college graduates, job prospects have thinned and landing that entry level job is a chore. The sour economy is challenging optimistic, young members of the workforce who face unemployment rates nearly three times that of the general population. Graduates are also pressured to find employment to pay off record amounts of student loan debt.” -Minnesota Public Radio

“Among Those Graduating College with Debt: - 34% say they have sold possessions to make ends meet - 42% say they live ‘paycheck-to-paycheck’ - 27% say they delayed getting a medical or dental procedure - 31% with Outstanding College Loans Say Madonna Will Become a Grandmother Before Their Debt is Paid Off - One-Third of Indebted Graduates Give Parents ‘D’ or ‘F’ for Financial Preparations 9-in-10 Say Graduating Without Debt is a ‘Big Advantage in Life’ -PRNewswire

And this serious problem is not limited to the U.S. Take a look at China, whose universities do not grant degrees to students until they have finished paying off their debt:

“Last month, Li felt that he struck good fortune when he was finally offered a job by the Guangdong-based Midea Holding Co Ltd upon graduation. “For me, obtaining the job will ensure getting rid of poverty and repaying the university debt and the student loan,” said Li.

“However, the excitement did not last long since he could not obtain the essential certificates necessary to complete an employment contract, including graduation and degree certificates and assignment documents due to his failure to pay off his debts to the university.

“Born in a poor family in a small village of Liuyang, Hunan Province, Li and his family had no enough money to pay his tuition and accommodation fees for his four years of study at university. But Li said he was counting on getting a student loan from the bank when he registered four years ago, with 6,000 yuan (US$722), almost all the money his family could borrow. Since the certificates are a must for the employer to recognize his academic credentials from the university, Li felt the dream of employment would just flicker and die out.”-PRC Consulate of New York

Given the current situation that a college education no longer provides the financial security and job stability it once did, and that millions of students are graduating with unmanageably large amounts of debt, I wondered if more people weren’t asking themselves if going to college was worth it if you have to borrow money to do so. I Googled “is it worth it to go to college?”

There are millions of people like myself who grew up in low-income families, graduated from inner-city high schools and were sold the lie by parents, teachers and self-appointed “community leaders” that a college education is a surefire way to pull yourself out of poverty.

But if you graduate with so much outstanding debt that you may end up having less discretionary income than your peers who may have foregone college and entered the work force right after high school or had entered a trade school as opposed to traditional academia, was it really worth going to college? After all, the poorer your family is, the more you have to borrow. And when you can’t turn to family to help pay off your debt, you may end up putting off such things as getting married, starting a family, moving out of your parents’ home or even saving for your children’s’ college educations.

Poor people, and especially minorities, are constantly told as adolescents that education on its own is the key to success, no matter what the cost because the end justifies the means. But we soon find out that something as simple as not having a car or a certain license/certificate can keep you out of many jobs, regardless of academic credentials.

The truth is, what particular occupation or profession your major prepares you for and what internships you take on in that occupation or related field is what really determines how soon you will find steady work after graduation. Everything outside of your major (your general education requirements) is a great supplemental education, but does not help you become better at whatever it is you’re majoring in. If it did, it would be a required course in your major.

I was glad to see I wasn’t the only one asking that question. I found an excellent article by Scott Sellers who called today’s system of higher education “the opiate of the masses” (anyone who had to learn about Karl Marx will appreciate such a reference). Sellers, who possesses an Associates degree, offered the following:

“…the most sinister aspect of this illusion of self-improvement is the misconception that we as individuals cannot educate ourselves. How sad is it that we are awash in information, yet we feel that unless an “official” institution is spoon-feeding us a proper diet of knowledge, we will be left uneducated?

“The education being offered in our colleges and universities, when viewed in this light, truly begins to look like a symbol not of initiative or intelligence, but one of affluence and mediocrity.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

An article by Scott Burns addresses the same question through a less philosophical approach like Sellers and takes a more fiscal view of the outcome of a student who borrows money to attend college versus someone who does not go to college at all.

“When you earn more money, you pay more taxes, and you pay at higher rates. One consequence is that the cost of repaying college loans rises because you have to pay more taxes to net enough cash to repay a dollar of original borrowing.

“Forgoing four years of earning power while in college on borrowed money nearly evens the playing field.”

I guess that pretty much delivers a well-deserved bitch slap to that overused, outdated statistic from the 1980 U.S. Census that states that college graduates earn $1 million more over a lifetime than high school graduates. While there may be some truth in that statement, those who recite it forget to factor in the money borrowed to obtain a college degree as well as the years spent outside of the work force (those years when most Americans are at their most productive).

Do any members of the graduating classes of 2007 or 2008 feel their college experience was worth having?

I’d love to hear from someone on this.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 25th, 2008 at 10:09 pm and is filed under Labor, Education, Economics, Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.