I was in the park yesterday, and I noticed there were many young people wandering about looking stunned. Now, sun can stun in Seattle, especially after a really rainy winter and spring but it struck me that it might not be a coincidence that it’s roughly this time of year when people graduate. So I wondered if some of them were stunned by the explosive decompression of no school–and/or the thought of college debt. And then when I got home I came across Robert Reich’s blog. He has a modest proposal regarding student loans:
But how can a young people repay this much money when the job market is so bad? The law doesn’t allow college loans to be discharged in personal bankruptcy.
Even when they do find jobs, college grads have no choice but to take the job that pays the most. They can’t afford to do what they might really want to do — become, say, a social worker or writer or legal services attorney.
This problem won’t go away when the economy recovers. College debt burdens have been rising for years, and the career choices of many newly-minted graduates are narrowing to those that help repay college loans. We need a new system. So here’s my proposal: Any college student can get full funding from the government, with only one string attached. Once they’ve graduated and are in the work force, they pay 10 percent of their incomes for the first 10 years of full-time work into the same government fund they drew on to finance their college education.
Now maybe that formula will need to be adjusted up or down to cover all the costs. And surely some people will game the system as they do every other one. But the essential idea is that linking the costs of college to subsequent wages makes college affordable to everyone.
It struck me as simple and good-hearted, certainly an interesting starting point. But I’ve never been through an American educational institute; I don’t know what it’s like to have to pay to play. So I’m curious about the response of those who have. What do you think?
Nicola Griffith 
In Georgia, we have HOPE scholarships, funded by the Georgia Lottery. Students with a B (or above) High School average can attend a state college, university or technical school for free, or receive a partial scholarship to a private institution. (Hope scholarships only apply to associate and bachelor’s degrees and technical certificates.)
We also have the PROMISE Teacher Scholarship Loan — students receive up to $6,000 their junior and senior year of college if they agree to teach in Georgia after graduation. (One year for each $1,500.)
I think the problem with tithing for tuition would probably be that people would go for the most expensive college / university even if they could get as good an education at a less expensive school. There would need to be limits to how much money you could receive, for how long, and for what purpose; and perhaps a stipulation that your tithe begins after you start making a certain amount a year.
I’ll be grim. I don’t believe the 10%-over-10-year plan would work. Those who have trouble paying back their student loans right now wouldn’t be able to make a living if 10% of their wages were taken away. Graduates would be, again, forced to consider the better-income job over the more modest one.
Worse, perhaps, is my suspicion that those with high earnings would become bitter and resent the drain. We aren’t taught to be grateful and give back to those people and institutions that helped us become who we are, but rather to feel entitled to everything and then some more. We already have too much of that attitude going around in our society. In the old times, if one didn’t walk to the well and carried back a full bucket, one didn’t expect to drink water at the table, let alone bathe.
We could push it as far as a tax increase that would completely subsidise universal higher education, and we’d still have a problem. From what I’ve observed, people have a hard time appreciating anything that is handed out. Students who are conscious of the cost of their education tend to make more of it than those for whom it is a birthright.
I’ll get a bit cynical, too, and say that university/college is a glorified baby-sitter, and as such, should be deemed a luxury rather than a government’s priority. The education one receives in those institutions is so removed from the demands of the market it could be bypassed altogether. I’d say the necessary skills for 95% of all jobs could be (are indeed) better learned through internships. University, IMO, mostly serves the function of buying the already-employed a few more years before the next wave of competitors comes knocking with job applications and despair and lower pay expectations. Otherwise, I have no clue why an elementary school teacher is expected to master university-level Calculus, plus other generic (non-teacher specific) requirements that total 7 years of college before even being allowed to apply for an entry level position—and after all those years and tuition shedding, her experience with actual children in an actual classroom environment will amount to roughly 60 hours! 7 years to gain 60 hours of employable skills. Wow. And so goes for many other degrees.
I’d rather see the government invest more in elementary and secondary education, ensuring that every child: a) eats a nutritious breakfast, snack, and lunch at school, b) learns to learn, c) remains curious about the world, d) treats others (people, animals, plants, etc.) with care and becomes genuinely involved in his/her community. When those children grew up, they’d have no need for institutions to force feed them knowledge, they’d be self-actualising and aware of the demands and limits of their work/live environment. This is the only bit of my comment where I’ll allow myself to become a teary-eyed utopian. Okay, done now, moving on…
One of the comments left in Robert Reich’s blog goes:
<>If you ask me, the American dream is no longer realistic for most middle-class people.<> I’d say this is really what’s behind the current student-loan repayability dilemma. University is free in Mexico. There are also private institutions that 98% of the population won’t be able to afford in a century of full-time minimum wages. If you play the latter well, you graduate with enough Big Contacts to land you a decent job; the former can earn you a PhD that will translate into a retail/clerical job with a $140 USD paycheque every two weeks, 80% of which will go towards the rent of a one-bedroom apartment in a modest-to-crummy part of town. Enter 40-year-old roommates as a means to cut back on housing expenses and be able to afford food and bus fare. I imagine the reality in most countries is far greyer than the Mexican version; the US is simply waking up from the American Dream a few centuries later than the rest of the world.
karina — I suspect you’re right. I was one of the smartest (IQ around 145) people in my elementary / high schools, but never learned any of the basic life skills. I have two degrees — Biology and Journalism — and haven’t earned a penny from either. (At one point, I had a copy of my diploma posted over the dishwasher where I worked.)
One of the reasons I volunteer with elementary and middle school girls is to encourage them to learn the life skills they’ll need to succeed.
What about learning just for the love of it in a diverse community? This isn’t just about money , you know. It’s about preserving the human community. I know, I know, I’m a wild-eyed idealist, but I Loved my college education, the friends I made and the teachers and mentors I met. I attended a land grant state university and paid in-state tuition. But it’s also true that state taxes paid 70% of our tuition. Now at that same school, taxes only pay 23%. That’s just society not being willing to pay for the education of its children. and that’s a damn shame.
Here in New Zealand, as an NZ Resident, the government pays for my study costs while I am a student (for however long I choose), and I also get a very modest allowance, which includes a tiny accommodation benefit every week. It’s not a lot, but it helps. I work at the university on a casual basis, to supplement a little bit extra, but because I study full time, it’s not regular.
Did I say the student loan is interest free?
And the allowance is not paid back.
Of course, you have to repay the loan eventually, and start doing so once you earn above a certain salary threshold. Repayments is about 10% or thereabouts, and it’s different if you are self-employed.
This is one of the reasons I am thrilled to be in this country. Don’t get me wrong, I miss South Africa incredibly, but to go to university there would have been near impossible. No loans, no nothing. Everything paid out of your own pocket. Or you get a loan from a bank where the interest kills you.
<>Barabara<>: I agree with you. I think a fair amount of students who go to university do so because they want to better themselves and expand their intellectual horizons. I’m doing a double major in English Literature and Religious Studies; yep, my future is secured! I’ll be doing a lot of postgraduate studies in Lit because I happen to enjoy the academic environment, I get an enormous kick out of learning new things (I’m one of those big kids who always go “But Why?”), and I might want to teach in the future alongside writing. For me, paying back the loan will be worth every cent.
All in all, I think what I am getting in NZ is a good deal. The incredible opportunity to broaden my mind, enhance the way I think, give me the tools to write in a different way than what I do when I’m writing fiction, to meet amazingly talented people and to be in an environment that challenges me every day. Perhaps it has to do with individual mindset. But yes, I think that learning more shouldn’t necessarily be done with the express notion that it will earn you a better salary.
Well, in my utopia of self-actualising, aware, caring people, the community would be diverse and everything would be as much about learning for the love of it without sacrificing a benefit or return to the society that made it possible. Add to this scenario the spice and challenge of a job worth doing as best we can because it either feeds or heals bodies, homes, spirits; or it is a job that helps us find out who we are and that it’s okay to laugh and cry and dance and rest; plus other utopian, happy-under-the-rainbow snapshots.
The way I see it, university/college has become a separate organism from every other aspect of society (i.e. what some call the Real World). This isolated organism is so inefficient its very existence is constantly in peril. In an effort to preserve itself, academia has become increasingly uptight and sterile when what it really needs is the opposite. Take a peek at Bruce G. Charlton’s < HREF="http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2008/11/why-are-scientists-so-dull.html" REL="nofollow">“Why are scientists so dull?”<>. I find some echoes of my own opinions about what’s wrong with most disciplines, the economy, and the world at large.
The clunky machinery of academia makes as much sense to me as having a 2000kg vehicles to carry a 70kg people around. It makes as much sense as the fact that every country (with the exception of a few regions/ provinces/ states) considers solar and electric cars illegal. As a bulk, humanity is one greedy mass that latches on to archaic technology and institutions as security blankets, because our very decision-making process is made from a place of fear: fear of change, fear of death, fear of poverty, fear of insecurity and uncertainty, fear of ignorance, fear of not meeting expectations, fear of the other, fear fear fear.
I’m not advocating that we go burn down our universities. I do play along with the very system I’m critiquing, I love learning with peers and I decided I can afford the glorified baby-sitter because I want to hang out in the nice campus and also “full-time student” looks better on the resume than “unemployed” or “wrestling with issues re: how to plot and develop a great story”. Still, I keep asking myself the question, “Does it make sense for aspiring writers (or the government, on their behalf) to pay between $20,000-$100,000 for a Creative Writing MFA when we could just find a mentor and peer critique group that would certainly thrive on $10,000 a year per member?” My answer is: no, it makes no sense. The mentor-approach would support established authors who are in the financial struggle between projects. The aspiring writer would benefit from an ongoing support group that has neither the short-sighted aim for nor ends with graduation, but is instead a hustling, incubating ground to help the members position themselves better in the Real World of publishers, readers, etc. See < HREF="http://www.spinwrites.com/article-sun.pdf" REL="nofollow">“The new writing groups: More writing, less merlot.”<>I’ve been looking at the relationship between First Nations artists and their communities here in Canada. They’re the closest I’ve come to storytellers being valued and actively supported by the society they help enrich. My thoughts are still green and I have no conclusions or viable alternatives to offer at this point, but I do feel strongly that academia in its current incarnation has to go.
Academia ha always been a thorn in the side of society. Legislators delight in characterizing it as la la land inhabited by pie in the sky professors and rowdy gullible students. Revolutions start with ideas. Universities are some of the only places where ideas get the respect they deserve.
karina —
There’s an “office” (writers’ group) at zoetrope.com that does nothing but share leads and discuss screenplay marketing.
<>barbara<>, the problem I see is that many ideas generated @ universities never leave the campus. Re: ideas getting the respect they deserve, one of my most recent experiences left me feeling that protocol, convention, lists, formats, avoiding confrontation, etc. are all far more valued than real intellectual & soul-searching exploration in the academic context. This hasn't always been my experience, thankfully, and I sure hope there are at least a few institutions left that do push for revolutions; individuals can only accomplish so much.
<>DianneorDi,<> I’ve been a Zoetrope subscriber for a while. How did you like their All-Story Latin American Issue with doodles by Guillermo del Toro?
karina — I’m too cheap to buy a copy. I spent all my money on And Now We Are Going To Have A Party.
<>karina<>: I know that much of what study at university find its way into my writing. My focus in Religious Studies is on Evolutionary Religion (Biology and Psychology of Religion), and this is a big part, thematically, of what I’m exploring in the novel I’m currently writing.
This issue is very close to my heart because here in Scotland currently we have free tuition but with student loans for living expenses so students still end up with a lot of debt and currently we are negotiating with Government to better understand the real costs of being a student – meantime in England and Wales they still pay tuition fees although those from the poorest backgrounds sometimes do not but again there is a lot of debt to start working life. We in NUS are committed to fight for a workable solution for all people to get a chance at education so that it is not for the privileged few and for international students who pay higher fees. Personally I think that a proper education is a right that we need to fight for. Even if we do not end up specifically using the actual degrees we have trained in the educational level is never wasted and can be used to apply those skills of thinking independently, self discipline and analytical thought plus it gives you the enrichment that can never be replicated elsewhere. And as far as teaching young children are concerned I think it is even more important that those teachers are trained to the utmost of their mental capability because children always amaze me with their great intelligence and they deserve proper, not potted answers to their questions. Children are our future and they deserve the best.
Actually pay through debt consolidation one of the easiest way to say goodbye to debt. In best debt management program, it will recommend you from all the debt with lilt advisory.< HREF="http://www.iamdebtfree.com" REL="nofollow">certified debt management <>