The College Debt Crisis | Heather Ferguson | September 2011
There is an old Italian proverb which reads, “a hundred wagon loads of thoughts will not pay a single ounce of debt.” I can so attest to this! There I was, a young woman on the verge of graduating from the College of William and Mary, when a professor I admired encouraged me to attend graduate school. Flattered that she had so much faith in me, I immediately dashed out and applied to a multitude of law schools, knowing very little about law school or the cost of attending. I was extremely lucky to graduate from college with no debt, and therefore unfamiliar with the whole process of student loans. No one told me how easy it was to suddenly get access to $150,000! And, no one told me I would be paying roughly $800 per month upon graduation for the next thirty years of my life.
Education has increasingly become a profitable business in America. When I graduated from college almost twenty years ago, a college degree was your gateway to a world of opportunity. It could almost guarantee you a career with benefits and a competitive salary. However, as time has moved on, a college degree, though an accomplishment, no longer makes you “stand out” among your peers in the job market. Employers look at advanced degrees: masters, doctorates, or even multiple advanced degrees. With these increasing pressures for more education come the burden of college and graduate school debt.
My experience with accessing student loans is not unusual. The approval process is pretty lenient and suddenly you are the proud owner of a mortgage on your mind. I probably could have chosen several different paths upon graduation from law school. Some of my classmates became entrepreneurs, others worked for large firms, and still others pursued different careers. I was drawn to public interest work. I am still drawn to this cause. I have always worked for non-profit agencies or local governments. My salary is meager, but my heart is happy with my work. However, I must admit that each month as I watch that money flow out of my bank account and back to the loan companies, I am discouraged. How does one ever get “ahead” and still find joy in their work? I tend to question my choice to become a lawyer at these times. I often look back with my rose-colored glasses and think, if I had chosen to become an educator, I would have no debt. (Of course, if I had become a teacher, I would also have my summers off, but that is a whole other topic).
Where does it end? If right now it requires an advanced degree to make a living in America, what will be needed in twenty more years? What happens to the general economy when so many student loans are never repaid? Perhaps, as Will Durant, American philosopher and historian, said, “Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.” As we increase the need for higher and higher education and thereby incur greater and greater student debt, it would seem that we are forgetting the very purpose of education. Education and self-discovery can and should occur everywhere, not just in the buildings of college campuses. Often, the best educations come without any price at all.
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