The repercussions from the few siphoning away money from the majority of United States citizens begins to hit home with the young population as they enter college and then graduate. Fresh out of the domestic womb, we load up our young people with thousands of dollars in debt via college loans. The offspring of the few that have successfully siphoned away chunks of the community pie have little to worry about since their parents can afford ivy league costs. And connections will be available upon graduation for that six figure job on Wall Street or in the venture capital world, but the story is quite different for the vast majority. Our young people graduate with over twenty grand in debt and then have to find a job on their own. Good luck.
Worse yet, college tuition is skyrocketing and interest rates on student loans are rising. The cost of college is outpacing working parent’s stagnant wages. State governments can’t afford to subsidize public undergraduate education so the cost burden is shifted to the parents and students. Federal student loan interest rates are expected to rise from 3.4% to 6.8% — the Federal Government certainly can’t lend our young people money at low rates any longer since they have gone to the well far too often in the last decade. So there you have it young people and future of America. Welcome to the real world. I hope you enjoyed your youth. If you want to live the middle class dream, get used to the idea of loading up on debt to get a thin slice of stale pie, with interest due upon consumption.
Contemplating The Human Direction 
This is a subject I’ve thought a lot about, and I have concluded that it is a mistake for government to guarantee student loans. The result of doing so has mostly been to line the pockets of tenured college professors and administrators. The prices colleges charge, which continue to go up faster than inflation, have little or no correlation with the quality of the education their graduates leave with. Instead, colleges compete with one another through scholarships and the like for prime raw talent and then leverage their “success” through snob-appeal advertising, hence the success of the Ivy’s and other top institutions. I find it ironic that most real knowledge is available on Wikipedia and in free online offerings while academia is peddling diplomas, a product on which they have an exclusive, government-sanctioned lock.
Hi Jim. You would think, with the emergence of technology, that education in essence should become a commodity. Imagine what we could do with our little people bringing education to life through computers that supplement standard reading materials. And there is no reason higher education couldn’t be offered via cheap technological solutions. Regardless, it is my opinion, that higher education should be paid for via taxes such that every young person that can pass standard tests or prove their knowledge base is sufficient to move on to higher education, should not be obstructed by cost or burdened with thousands of dollars in debt. There should be no barriers to educating our youth. I point to the Scandinavian countries as good examples. Of course now we are entering the world of “socialism” which carries all kinds of baggage and opposition in our culture. Generation by generation our populace is falling behind.
I am catching-up with your posts backwards – I admit that I am out of my depth when it comes to economic theory; however, 1. I want to point you to the student protests in Montreal – 2. I want to say that I worked my ass off for many years to pay back my student loans, even when I was trying to bring up two kids, and 3. I am now paying out of my meager pension to help my sons through university. I suppose that all this comes down to how much our nation (Canada in this case) places a priority on higher education. I believe that some countries in our world financially support higher education – why don’t we, in North America do this? It seems to me that if we want future generations to represent our country and culture in the best way possible we should encourage a viable system that allows anyone to study within the post-secondary system….
Agreed Clinock…Europe does a good job with the young and education…if you pass some basic tests and you are motivated to continue with education, cost shouldn’t be a barrier.
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This makes trade school look like a viable option. Especially considering recent college grads make up the highest demographic of unemployed persons.
Indeed…specific applicable skills obtained at minimum cost seems to be the most viable direction for the young.
I’d love to recommend the following book for you all: http://www.amazon.com/The-Student-Loan-Scam-Oppressive/dp/0807042293. Sadly, it is already grossly out-of-date.
When I read it a couple years back, for me, it brought to light very shady back-door deals and a pervasive undercurrent of theft rampant throughout the education industry.
Subsequently, however, as Jim mentioned, all student loans have been bought-up by FedLoans. Since then I have been denied my financial aid, which was mostly in the form of grants. Just as Marian was saying, I was even attempting to a trade school type program in an effort to simply get back into the workforce; which, for my particular circumstances, should be mostly free.
Not to toot my own horn, but I am not a dumbass. I have been working to educate myself for years—all in ways where I could and would give back to the community—and the constant barricades set up for me are incredulous. It simply shouldn’t be this difficult for a man like me to get an education—even a shitty one. On the other hand, I’ve witnessed loads of people getting into the same school (as I am curled up in the fetal position in the corner of the Financial Aid office) blatantly and openly running a scam just to grab that loan money and run…or buy meth…and then run!
In short, we are doomed!