An entire generation is being crushed and shackled. Student debt coupled with the expectation of college and necessity of needing a college degree and beyond to succeed are at fault. In today’s modern era, to have a job that pays you a respectable, living wage or salary, you must have a college degree or more. With manufacturing jobs disappearing and unions getting crushed, this is becoming even more of a necessity.
The Student Debt Crisis
Let start with student debt.
Seven in 10 seniors (69%) who graduated from public and nonprofit colleges in 2014 had student loan debt, with an average of $28,950 per borrower. Over the last decade—from 2004 to 2014—the share of graduates with debt rose modestly (from 65% to 69%) while average debt at graduation rose at more than twice the rate of inflation.
What does student debt look like for us as a nation?
...student loan debt exceeded credit card debt in 2010 and auto loans in 2011, and it passed the $1 trillion mark in 2012.
...Average student loan debt at graduation has been growing steadily over the last two decades. In 1993-94, about half of bachelor’s degree recipients graduated with debt, averaging a little more than $10,000. This year, more than two-thirds of college graduates graduated with debt, and their average debt at graduation was about $35,000, tripling in two decades.
Check out this remarkable group of charts from Mother Jones magazine to really get a visual representation of the crisis. The following is really a strong representation of the inequality of getting a college education.
So what do these numbers mean for an average family? For my wife and I, we have a combined $40K in still unpaid student loans. We have four college degrees between the two of us and our income has dropped almost 40% since 2010. Our monthly student loan payments haven’t gone down one cent.
In 2010, I was laid off from a previous job as a teacher in Chicago (with a Masters degree in teaching) because the school didn’t want to pay me (underserved, 99% free/reduced lunch population). They replaced me with someone making 25% less who promptly quit 5 weeks after he was hired. I lost my income, my benefits, and my peace of mind. What stuck around? Those student loan payments.
My family is just one of millions that have the same story in this modern American economy.
College as an Expectation
In high school, from our politicians, and in the workplace, there is an expectation for workers to have a college degree or higher.
By educational attainment: 35 percent of the job openings will require at least a bachelor's degree, 30 percent of the job openings will require some college or an associate's degree and 36 percent of the job openings will not require education beyond high school.
What do salaries look like with or without a college degree?
...median annual earnings for full-time working 25- to 32-year-olds with bachelor's degrees grew by nearly $6,700 to $45,500 from 1965 to 2013. During that same time, median annual earnings for high school graduates in that same age group fell by nearly $3,400 to $28,000.
But what about average income adjusted for inflation in the last 50 years? Adjusted for inflation and purchasing power, average incomes haven’t budged.
For most U.S. workers, real wages — that is, after inflation is taken into account — have been flat or even falling for decades, regardless of whether the economy has been adding or subtracting jobs.
Cash money isn’t the only way workers are compensated, of course — health insurance, retirement-account contributions, education and transit subsidies and other benefits all can be part of the package. But wages and salaries are the biggest (about 70%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics) and most visible component of employee compensation.
What that tells me is you better get that college degree if you want to keep up. Without that college degree? Get left in the dust. With the college degree? Keep up but wear the shackles.
The Next Generation
So what are we doing to set up the next generation for success? Tough to say.
How are graduation rates by race?
In school year 2011–12, some 3.1 million public high school students, or 81 percent, graduated on time with a regular diploma. Among all public high school students, Asian/Pacific Islander students had the highest graduation rate (93 percent), followed by Whites (85 percent), Hispanics (76 percent), and American Indians/Alaska Natives and Blacks (68 percent each).
Some American Dream there…
What about those students who do graduate? Can we consider them college ready?
Nearly one in three high school graduates who took the ACT tests are not ready for entry-level college courses in English, reading, math or science, according to new data released by the testing organization Wednesday.
Of the 1.8 million high school graduates who took the ACT in 2013, only 26 percent reached the college readiness benchmarks in all four subjects. Another 27 percent met two or three of the benchmarks, and 16 percent met just one.
How about supporting students while they are in school now?
“I’ve been in schools that feel like jails,” with high security, poor ventilation, and little natural light, Gutter explains. “I come from three generations of educators. I believe every child is entitled to a healthy, safe place to go to school.”
“Our best guess is that it will take approximately $271 billion to bring school buildings up to working order and comply with laws,” states the report. “If we add to that modernization costs to ensure that our schools meet today’s education, safety, and health standards, we estimate a jaw-dropping $542 billion would be required.”
So our children are going to crumbling schools in places like Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Seattle, and nearly every other urban center.
Conclusion
We’re not supporting our children properly now. We’re telling them to go to college to be able to succeed in life but we’re sending them unprepared. We’re calling it “The American Dream”, but it’s a dream that is tainted.
And for those that are lucky enough to get to and finish college, they are left with a burden that can last for decades.
Is this the American democracy we want? Is this the American democracy we fought for? I’m not offering solutions in this diary or exploring the causes for it deeper.
The one conclusion I’m offering is this. We must change course and stop doing things the way we are doing them now.
We are literally crushing an entire generation of children and young adults under this problem. It breaks my heart to think about what this looks like for quite literally an entire generation of people.
What are your thoughts? Civility please.