Letters to the Editor
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Two Things Different
Bankruptcy reform will forever change the ability of those in the lower classes to achieve upward mobility in two ways.
You can default on a student loan, but only death or major injury will get you out of paying it back. It's like taxes now, you cannot right it off. I started with a $13,000 loan in '89. Had some bad times in the '90s. I will be paying back over $70k when I'm done and if I don't, they'll take it out of my social security.
The second change in bankruptcy law effects entrepreneurs. Henry Ford went bankrupt twice before achieving success with the model T. Would he have taken the chances now, knowing that he could lose his home, and everything he owns, and be put on a payment schedule that would break him?
It's a new generation's equivalent of indentured servitude, fall into its trap and you may never climb out. Leaves little time for protesting, or dissenting, or creating. I, for one don't think it's a happy accident.
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I'm not buying into the bankruptcy law thing for student loans
The sad fact is that millions of people just slacked off and stopped paying their student loans. In steps the law to micromanage your lives for you. I really can't imagine anyone going to college, getting into debt in order to pursue something they know won't pay it back and then not paying it back. That sounds like abusing the system to me. After all, if it's a Federal loan, I'm the guy making up that slack, not you.
The problem is not that. The problem is that college costs have outstripped the rate of inflation by 2:1 each year for a generation. Public University today costs what Princeton did in 1977. In NYS the ratio of public funding is about 30-35% yes? In NC it's no more than 50%. So the notion that these university systems are entirely public is a little off. They're not.
And the other problem, quite honestly my slack friends is you need to get your asses moving. The NC State Orientation now includes the following presentation slide: 35% of incoming Freshmen will graduate in 4 years. 66% will graduate in 5 years. ~80% will graduate in 5.5 years. C'mon figure it out already - get your degree and get out. If you change your major in the second half of your last semester of the your senior year, that's fine. Slow, but fine. Maybe you should go at night or something.
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Gotta have everything, this minute
So, massive debt is putting these youngsters in a bind? Okay, I'll buy it (no pun intended), but I was born in 1963, went through college and grad school in the '80s and '90s, scraped by, and paid all my debts. I now have a livable salary from my teaching career, and I have a decent savings account. I never sold out my ideals, and I'm just as liberally-minded and active as I was during my idealistic student days. Why is this? Because I also learned early on that I couldn't own everything I wanted the minute I wanted it. I don't pity the debt and long hours some of these youngsters are burdened with, because I notice that many of them have good cars, an i-phone, an i-pod, a laptop, big-screen cable t.v., playstations, etc. Much of their debt is self-imposed, and many of them forsake health care so that they can buy the latest gadgetry that they feel entitled to. Perhaps they've been brainwashed by our consumer culture to think they're owed all of this crap before they can afford it, but I was tempted by the same ads in the 1980s and 1990s, and I was able to understand that if I couldn't afford it, I shouldn't be buying it on credit. It's called short-term sacrifice with an eye to long-term stability. Instant gratification is never a sound fiscal policy, and it doesn't take a genius to figure this out.
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Cognitive dissonance indeed
My experience as a Gen-Xer mirrors the situations described in this book, and yet I'm simultaneously astounded by the amounts of money people spend for new cars, large homes, expensive gadgets, etc. I have a good job at a large corporation (not my intended path as a fresh-faced college grad in the early '90s), but still find myself wondering how people afford all this stuff.
The only conclusion I've been able to reach, which is supported by recent economic data, is that people simply aren't saving - for retirement or anything else. That, to me, is the scariest thing of all. By buying into the consumerist trap, people are making the worst of a bad situation in our time of corrupt plutocracy and profoundly reactionary politics. Much of the American public is living in a fool's paradise.
Who's going to take care of all these people spending like there's no tomorrow once they're too old or too sick to work and have no savings? If the right-wingers really do succeed in bankrupting this country (and they're well on their way), we ain't seen nothin' yet. The collapse in living standards will be precipitous.
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Re: this statement:
"And the other problem, quite honestly my slack friends is you need to get your asses moving. The NC State Orientation now includes the following presentation slide: 35% of incoming Freshmen will graduate in 4 years. 66% will graduate in 5 years. ~80% will graduate in 5.5 years. C'mon figure it out already - get your degree and get out. If you change your major in the second half of your last semester of the your senior year, that's fine. Slow, but fine. Maybe you should go at night or something."
Funding at public universities has recently been slashed such that schools can only offer so many sections of classes and programs are being cut, often with very little notice. Furthermore, there are simply fewer faculty members to teach. Therefore it takes students five or evn six years to complete their major requirements because they have no other option. Many students begin a course of study only to discover that it no longer exists when they enter their third year and are forced to start over. Sure there are your token "professional students", but they are more often the exception rather than the norm.
FWIW, I managed two majors in four years, but my subject areas did not hinge on taking class x, followed by class y, etc; both were relatively flexible so long as you weren't picky. Then again, both were liberal arts majors that did not give me any real career prospects without graduate school unlike the more rigid business, econ, science and math majors that tended to end up taking forever due to the school's ineptitude.