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Looking back at the history of Federal Student Loans and Grants it occurs to me that there was no a whole lot of outrage about the potential end game for loans to people getting degrees in things which only resulted in jobs for a tiny number of people who became professors.
You have a better chance at becoming a professional sportsball player than landing a tenured position at a university.
I am curious, where were your objections 30 years ago? 20 years ago? 10 years ago?
Because the whole "the taxpayers are on the hook for defaults" thing is right there in the law.
Hey, you voted, you agreed to this.
Let's blame the people really responsible for this disaster.
The boomers.
Because, once upon a time, you had to prove you couldn't afford college and that your parents couldn't afford it either to be eligible for student loans. And those loans were let at reasonable interest rates with sane repayment schedules with tuitons that weren't unpayable with a part-time job at an entry level salary.
That meant the loans could be repaid by someone working as a fry-cook should their degree prove to have no value getting a better job.
Edit to add: The Boomer parents are the ones who insisted that their kids be college educated to a percentage never before seen, but Gods forbid THEY have to pay for it! So they got the means based test removed so their kids could get degrees without their wealth being scrutinized.
Once the means based tests were removed, and the colleges realized that Congress would make ever more money available, at no risk to the college...
Tuition went up and new degree programs were created to get more butts in the seats.
Expanding enrollment was the goal, and it was actually better if a student never graduated. Ten years of tuition and no degree is better for the university than four years and a graduate.
But to get someone to sign up for all that meant they had to become very unscrupulous in signing up candidates.
A couple of lawsuits later and the colleges cannot even warn you there are no jobs in the field. Ironically this falls out of "promising" employment during admissions and the suit ended up eliminating mention of employment prospects either way.
Well, the avalanche is here, Pebble. If you're going to complain now, I need to see your dated proof you were trying to stop it for these past 20 years rather than a petulant, "I don't like this now!" realization that this is the end-game while you were asleep at the wheel.
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ReplyDeleteOK Boomer.
DeleteReply was too long, which is rude on someone else's blog, so I posted at my place. Your thoughts welcome.
ReplyDeletehttps://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2023/07/college-loans-and-reality.html
"The Boomer parents are the ones who insisted that their kids be college educated" you mean the so called Greatest Generation people who ran the government and put all the programs into law. Followed that by the Silent Generation you know the clown in the White House!
ReplyDeleteThe Silent Generation is complicit in this, but it's the boomers who pushed it. The Silents rode the wave.
DeleteIt really starts with the WW2 vets getting free educations and their insisting their kids (the boomers) get degrees. They saw how much a degree helped them and wanted their kids, the boomers to have the same leg up.
The big difference is in the paying for it. Boomers decoupled their affluence from their kids (gen x) getting degrees. That's the pebble that starts the avalanche.
Boomer politicians and college administrators are the people who signed off on the massive increase in tuition and enrollment.
You have to remember there are actually two generations of boomers, Angus. I made that demographic by a couple months. My parents were leading edge boomers. When they came of age, if you had a pulse and a degree in anything - you were on easy street. You were set for life. When I graduated 22 years Alberta was in deep recession. Youth unemployment ran 37%. For us kids it was a full on depression. Don’t give me that boomer nonsense. I got the same ride Gen X did.
ReplyDelete20 years later, my daughter came home with the long face and told me that she was dumping the sciences at university and instead going to take fine arts at some no-name college. I flipped my lid - but the doorbell rang…and my idiot elderly Boomer in-laws barged in. They invited themselves to the family meeting and I got sandbagged. “Shut up,” they explained to me, “the kid has to follow her dreams, and the money will follow that…!” I pleaded with her to stick with university or quit and get a job… but who is a kid going to listen to? Her grumpy old man telling her to work her arse off now and sacrifice for later - or her doting grandparents telling her she can party her way to a degree and the good life?
Guess what I’m trying to say is that yeah…the boomers were scamming the kids. But they were scamming everyone else too. I get it. My idiot in laws thought they were helping their granddaughter, because when they were kids, yes, you COULD get a Mickey Mouse degree and cash in. But there were plenty of boomers around sounding the alarm about the education scam…I was one of them and we were ignored. Hell’s bells, Gen X themselves saw through this. The kids themselves…most were of legal age when they signed for those loans. They could have done career studies… they could have done the right thing. But…they didn’t want to grow up. They wanted to extend their youth. And now, they don’t want to pay for it. Sorry…but it’s not my problem…
The "boomer nonsense" is that they created the situations that GenX and beyond have been dealing with, NOT that every single one of them regardless of tranche benefited from it.
DeleteA point I clumsily keep trying to make is circumstances, opportunities and experiences are not universal.
Something I could shove down a lot of people's throats is that I lost three years to the Army and four more recovering from the Army breaking me before I could even start on being a productive citizen.
Huzzah for them not bothering to defend democracy and cowering under the umbrella of protection we people who are better than them in every way provided!
But I don't make that point.
I get points like that thrown back at me...
I don't make that point because it's really irrelevant. The three (should have been four) years I gave to the Army was a choice. The four years going from being unable to walk to being "just" a cripple were circumstances.
DeleteBut the 7 year pause from high school to college did change the what opportunities were available when I graduated.
I see you had bad timing too!
I did get two degrees in careers that died just as I was getting established and I have started from zero a lot more than nearly everyone I know.
It wasn't always a bad choice on my part, though sometimes it was while I was learning a work ethic.
Well you put that just right: timing is everything. 20 years ago with your military background and college...you'd have had the world by the tail and your options would be wide open. You probably would have been upper middle class with a background like that.
DeleteAnd have no doubt - the Boomers ARE going to get theirs. I learned finance from my depression era grandmother. I have saved and saved all my life, and lived fairly frugally. Right now I am watching inflation gobble up the value of my life savings. My Canada Pension is a frickin joke. I will probably be okay... but I won't be sailing off into the sunset on my own yacht without a care in the world. I am fairly lucky... 65% of Canadians are now retiring with a mortgage. If that isn't the definition of staggering stupidity... I dunno what is.
Don't beat yourself up, and don't be bitter. You will get out of that hole and when you do you'll probably look back on the hard times with fondness. I dunno why it works that way...