Rising student debt is not exactly a news flash, but the amount of debt that many graduates find themselves with is growing alarmingly, as detailed in this piece from the Tacoma (Washington) News Tribune.
I'm struggling to pay off a healthy chunk of student debt myself, a little more than half of which I borrowed as an undergrad, the rest of which I borrowed to get through library school. But my situation is not nearly as bad as it could be: my sweetie had minimal student debt which he finished paying off several years ago, so at least we only have my debt to contend with. Lots of couples (and individuals, of course) aren't so lucky, as they try to pay off double or triple that amount of student debt, often on a single income.
The triple threat of the growing necessity of a college degree, reduced government financial support for higher education, and ever-rising tuition rates makes it pretty clear that the trend isn't going to reverse itself without some serious reform. Perhaps Congress will come to the rescue of overburdened students and parents, but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for their solution.
What really bugs me about all of this is that as unavoidably bad as the debt situation is for many students, some of them insist on digging their own holes. The wife of the man featured in the News Tribune article seems like an obvious case in point. She has borrowed over $100,000 to complete a doctorate in what the article refers to as "anthropology and religion" -- and she's not even finished yet. It goes almost without saying that her earnings expectations are not high once she does complete her degree, yet she continues, presumably adding to her debt in order to do so.
I don't know these people, and I know it isn't wise to judge their choices based on a few paragraphs in a newspaper human interest story. And I'm all for following your bliss, for doing what you feel in your heart of hearts you are meant to do -- but at some point, doesn't reality have to be reckoned with? This couple (who has two children, by the way) appears to be sacrificing their family's financial security and well-being so that one of them can chase a dream. Perhaps she's a brilliant scholar and will find nothing but glittering career success and a meteoric rise to the top of her field. But if she isn't, where will that leave them? According to the article, the couple is already deeply pessimistic about their chances to do something as basic to financial stability as buying a house. Not a good sign.
At what point do you have to take a hard look at what you need to do to achieve your dream career and decide that it's too much? One college friend of mine had a maxim to which he swore he would adhere as he chose his post-B.A. educational path: if you have to pay for graduate school, you probably shouldn't be there. What we didn't realize as naive undergrads was that there are fields where grad students have no choice but to pay their own way through. Still, I think there is a grain of truth in my friend's m.o. For many of us, it's too easy to watch the loans pile up in the service of what we think we ought to be doing. But in 21st-century America, some paths really are too costly to take.
Posted by Stacie at January 8, 2005 11:49 AM