By: Diane Benjamin
Yesterday I met a 24 year old very recent ISU grad. She is now $114,000 in debt and can’t find a job in her field. The friends she graduated with can’t find a job in their field either. She works a job that doesn’t require a college degree. She may never be able to work in her field, she is buried in debt for a useless degree.
Worse, at 24 years old, she has never known any federal government other than W Bush and Obama. She doesn’t know what a booming growing economy looks like. She knows nothing about pro-growth policies and limited government. She will most likely vote for a candidate who promises to abolish her debt.
Meanwhile, raising a family is out of the question. Buying a house is out of the question. Do you believe she won’t jump at any chance possible to be out of debt? She doesn’t understand that she may be out of debt, but somebody else will be forced to pay. The millions of others just like her don’t realize that voting for a bailout transfers their problem to the entire country.
Who is to blame?
- She is to blame for racking up that much debt.
- Her parents who allowed her to mortgage her future
- ISU financial aid for being very willing to help her get loans
- ISU for raising tuition every year because they can
- The State of Illinois for not promoting affordable education
- The State of Illinois for handing out lavish salaries and pensions
- The Federal government for making student debt easy
- The Federal government for the takeover of student loans to fund ObamaCare
- High interest rates to pay for ObamaCare
- Democrats for passing ObamaCare and then acting like the interest rates aren’t their fault
No, grants are not the answer. Colleges just raise rates when more grants are available.
Way too many kids attend college and get useless degrees because they are brainwashed into believing a degree is required. The winners in the next decade are going to be the ones NOT buried in debt.
It really IS possible to work your way through school. Don’t allow your kids to mortgage their future in college if they have no achievable goals.
The higher education bubble is going to burst. Millennials can either get crushed by it or find a way around it. Universities are going to be only for the rich unless government forces all taxpayers to subside a useless education. If they don’t institute reforms to decrease the cost, the bubble will burst on them too.
The new normal is:
- a mortgaged future with nothing to show for it
- socialized education
- or something entirely new
It is way past time for a new plan. Parents and teachers need to chart a new future involving technical schools and cheaper education. Companies need to provide training particular to their business.
Parents must protect their kids from government education. You sacrificed to raise your kids, now finish the job by explaining the facts.
Entrapping millennials with overwhelming debt and lack of good paying jobs limits their ability to purchase big ticket items such as automobiles and houses in the suburbs. Unfortunately , this is the only way Mayor Renner and Scott Blacks delulsions of utopia can come true. Millennials to poor to purchase cars and houses will be Forced to ride bikes and live in high density micro apartments downtown. But at least they will be happy enjoying a high quality if life sitting on the old court house lawn playing flutes, beating on drums, and writing poetry about Mother Earth.
Diane-
I do not always agree with what you write in this blog, but you are absolutely 100% right on this one. The enslavement of American youth in student loans is an absolute crime and the government and colleges and universities are a part of it. The great “higher education lie” will come crashing down in a few years when it is disrupted by free, quality online education and the educational system will get what has been coming to them for many years.
Pray tell let me guess they have a degree in social work and a master’s too, or a similar history degree. Seeing that loan amount doesn’t surprise me.
I definitely agree part of the problem is financial aid. ISU or where ever know they can keep increasing tuition and students will get loans. Rarely is any student turned down.
I wonder how much credit card debt they have too. It used to be a big problem on campuses where credit card companies would virtually hand a student a card. I can remember when they would be sitting outside Alamo II like vultures trying to snag students.
It’s kind of a two edge sword too if you also work to pay. I recently mentored a student from ISU who had a GPA below 3.0 mostly due to working part time. Most employers in their field of study wants a 3.0 GPA or higher. I sort of disagree with this but hey I don’t write HR policies or tell companies who they should hire. They told me if they had known that they wouldn’t have worked and just took out loans so that they could get a higher GPA.
In my recent discussion with a YMCA member over funding for a new Y they said that the younger generation has no money. They are too wrapped in debt to donate. Kind of scary if you think all of those current owners of the McMansions will ever be able to sell them when they retire or in the future.
The good news is that mayor professor is working on getting a new hotel in downtown Bloomington no less where they can get jobs after graduating. Maybe a dozen or so of them can rent a condo at the Ensenberger building too.
The degree is medical related. The economy REALLY sucks when that field has no job openings.
Government involvement in health care has had a detrimental effect on health professionals.
Wow sorry to hear that.
I think a lot of us have re-evaluated our medical coverage and use after ObamaCare kicked in and have cut back due to higher up front out of pocket requirements.
Marc, government reimbursement doesn’t cover the cost. Insurance companies reimburse at the same rate as the government. Doctor’s offices are closing or downsizing.
My doc is closing his office June 30th, even though he said he never would.
What major is this? Not just “medical related,” what major? I find it VERY hard to believe she is really $114,000 in debt. It doesn’t cost that much to attend ISU. There is no such thing as a “worthless” college degree, contrary to what Fox News tells you.
If I say more it might reveal who she is. Since she just graduated at 24, I wonder if she has a Masters. Since I rarely watch Fox, I have no idea what they say. I do know lots of unemployed and underemployed people with degrees.
I’m glad to hear you rarely watch that garbage 🙂 Same goes for the other two networks: garbage.
If she just has a bachelors, there’s no way all that debt is from ISU. No way. Even if she has a masters, there’s still no way. If in fact she does owe that much money, she likely transferred from a private school before finishing up at ISU.
I went to college on the G. I. Bill and Illinios Veterans Grant (IVG) an outstanding program that brings our vets home. Of course I gave up four years of my life in the U.S. Marine Corps to do it. Looking back, that was a four year paid vacation that took me all over the world on Uncle Sam’s dime. That was in the 1980’s, unlike today, it was an easy four year hitch, nothing was going on. I got my degree debt free. Graduated from ISU in 1993 and worked in my major for 3 years before I got into real estate investing. A college degree is way over rated. Skills like welding, HVAC, or machine operator, pay awesome. I think a lot of these kids are being educated beyond their own intelligence. Like Obama. Now there’s talk about the government forgiving student debt if they work for Uncle
Sam for X plus years. Call it indentured servants. I don’t feel sorry for these graduates stuck in debt. What’s at stake here is the legal sanctity of a contract. Will the government enforce legal agreements made between two adult parties who agree to do something, when consideration is involved, or do words, duties, respect, mean nothing.
I think it might be wise to spend a year or two after High School to figure out what kind of jobs are out there that suit a skill set or interest before deciding to attend college, if at all. How does an 18 year old know what they want to be when they grow up? The college graduates I am familiar with are not working in “their field.” It’s rough out there. Finding employment is a full time job. With the amount of debt she has, she must not have worked while going to school. Current employers view a 24 year old with little or no work history as a negative.
Great article! This should be handed out with every high school diploma.
Read a book a long time ago called “Debt Free U” by Zac Bissonnette. The one take-away I remember is not to be snobby about which college you (or your kids) attend. Be open to community college.
Our eldest is graduating this year, and is planning to live at home and attend ISU in the fall. It is absolutely stunning to me how many people have expressed their opinion that she should go away to school. Easy for them to say…it’s not their money. (These are adults that really ought to have an awareness of the student loan crisis and poor employment outlook.)
Between living at home, having a part-time job, being sensible about spending, and earning some modest scholarships, she will be doing this debt-free. And she’s getting a degree that will make her employable.
What is college anyway? Been there, done that but what was it? The hoopla associated with it is over rated. For a bachelors degree the first two years is general studies and then two years of your major field. Check that, two years. It’s just two years. Long before entering college I had other life experiences that I spent more years studying with on the job training. Many of us as kids were babysitters, grass cutters, paperboys. We detassled corn, washed cars, flipped burgers, and did janitorial work, etc. Although I will never regret my college education as it has helped me through life in many respects I avoided my major field and found myself in a successful career pertaining to my other life experiences.
Many people aren’t working in their field of study. Me included!
Just getting out of high school, 17-18 years old. Now what do I do? Stay at home with the P’s with nothing to do. Go to work at Mickey’s flippin’ some burgers with a bunch of grouchy old farts and the high school kids I just left behind? Or go on to college and PARTY?!?!!!!!!!! Well that’s a no brainer. It’s PARTY time! Yeah, so what do I know about debt? Parents have always paid the bills, room and board is free so what’s the big deal? I get some loans, get a degree, and get a job. No problem……Whoops.