The Observer, April 13, 2007
Volume XXXIX, Issue 24
Free Speech Zone: Student debt a significant problem
With graduation on the horizon, many seniors are examining their options for next year. Many of us are going to graduate school, some are traveling, and a good deal are trying to find a job or internship. But all of us will sooner or later have to come to terms with one of the great anomalies of American life - student loan debt.
The debt crisis of our generation is often talked about, but as usual, there is little genuine concern or concrete action from our representatives in Columbus or Washington. Well, to their credit, it's hard to hold a session of Congress when everyone is out golfing with lobbyists from Sallie Mae and company. But the lack of intent to aid the university students of America is really a symptom of the wider problem at hand. On the level of both university policy and public policy, this is a matter of allocating resources.
On the one hand, the blame can be placed on the colleges and universities themselves. Tuition costs have skyrocketed continually and uniformly for years but where has all this money gone? Sure, much of it has gone into fancy computer labs and genuine educational services like technology-enhanced classrooms, research lab equipment, and speaker fees. But far too much has also been allocated for shallow, uninspired projects which seek to market universities as if they were consumer products.
Spending millions upon millions on new dorms, plasma screen televisions that nobody watches, and commercials during the Vice Presidential debates are only the most ostentatious and ludicrous examples of a nation-wide trend.
Undoubtedly, the federal and state governments are also to blame for perennially under-funding student financial assistance programs. The FY 2007 budget for the federal government was $2.8 trillion; $22 billion of that was spent on student financial assistance. This was less than half the amount spent on financial aid programs just the year before. Considering the fact that we are spending about $2 billion a day on the military (www.whitehouse.gov/omb/), it really show where this country's priorities lie.
It's almost as if there is deep-seated hostility towards students in this country, because little else could explain the resulting situation. For example, it is a travesty that some internships actually require the student to pay the company or organization which he/she is working for. What is the logic in forcing an already overburdened young adult to pay to do someone else's menial work at overtime hours – unless it's a curt attempt to prepare us for how badly the system will be screwing us for the rest of our lives. We are "the debt generation" after all, so we had better get used to it.
To a degree, the university, the government, and lenders are all to blame for the inordinate debt of graduating students, causing the entire arrangement of higher education in this country to appear unjust. There is something structurally wrong with a system that deprives students of an educational experience worthy of the millions of dollars they are shoveling into it. And higher education loses its intellectual value when college becomes little more than a four-year internship which costs the student $40,000 a year. There is something wrong with a system which forces a student to choose bleak careerism over a subject of personal interest so that he/she can spend the next 30 years paying some avaricious lending organization seven percent annual interest.
Worst of all, as a recent USA Today article indicated, most people don't even get this lucky. Massive debt and restricted options are the haven for America's wealthier graduates. And the Bush Administration touts the fact that the federal government took in more tax revenue (in real terms) this year than ever before. A lot of good the richest country in the world has done for us!
Politicians act like they care about the plight of the majority of today's college students who don't come from the top income-tax bracket like they do. They also like to say that college students are "the future of this country" – what a crock. What future can we have, living in perpetual debt and despair?
Pieragastini is a senior History and International Studies major involved with Catalyst: Students for Social Justice, Case-ACLU, and the Philosophy Society.
