debt — Joanne Jacobs

A syllabus for the ‘Occupy’ movement

February 19, 2012 By Joanne

As universities rush to offer courses on the “Occupy” movement, Instapundit blogger Glenn Reynolds, a law professor, proposes a syllabus. One of his possible lessons:

1) The Higher Education Bubble and Debt Slavery Throughout History. Since ancient times, debt has been a tool used by rulers to enslave the ruled, which is why the Bible explains that the borrower is the slave to the lender. One complaint of many Occupy protesters involves their pursuit of expensive degrees that has left them burdened by student loans but unable to find suitable employment. This unit would compare the marketing of higher education and student debt to today’s students with the techniques used to lure sharecroppers and coal miners into irredeemable indebtedness. Music to be provided by Tennessee Ernie Ford.

For younger readers, Reynolds is referencing “Sixteen Tons” a song we used to belt out at my elementary school in an upper-middle-class suburb of Chicago.

You load sixteen tons an’ what do you get?
Another day older deeper and debt.
St Peter don’t you call me I cause can’t go:
I owe my soul to the company store.

There also was Drill, Ye Tarriers, Drill, in which we worked all day for the sugar in our tea (pronounced tay) down behind the railway.

Filed Under: College Tagged With: college costs, debt, higher education bubble, Occupy, student loans

Stop Sallie Mae’s unemployment penalty

January 31, 2012 By Joanne

Stop Sallie Mae’s unemployment penalty demands a Change petition.

Federal financial aid is geared to full-time, degree-seeking students, complained Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s audience at Tallahassee Community College. Colleges can’t train 2 million skilled workers without aid for people seeking short-term job training or part-timers who need literacy or English classes to qualify for a job.

Filed Under: Careers, College Tagged With: Arne Duncan, debt, financial aid, job training, literacy, Salie Mae, skilled workers, student loans, unemployment

Colleges should share student loan risk

January 28, 2012 By Joanne

Fix student loans by giving colleges “skin the game,” writes Alex Pollack in The American.

(Colleges) are the effective originators, the promoters, and the chief financial beneficiaries of student loans. It is their rising costs which result in ever more debt and more risk of default for student borrowers and for taxpayers.

The federal student loan program should make colleges share the risk of bad loans, Pollack writes. Colleges would have an incentive to avoid charging more than students will be able to repay.

Filed Under: College Tagged With: college costs, debt, default, student loans, tuition

‘Adrift’ after college

January 27, 2012 By Joanne

People who didn’t learn much in college don’t do well as graduates, concludes a follow-up report by the authors of the controversial Academically Adrift study. Graduates who scored in the bottom quintile on the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA), a test of thinking skills, were more likely to be unemployed and living with their parents, compared to graduates in the top quintile, reports the Chronicle of Higher Education in ‘Adrift’ in Adulthood.

Thirty-six percent of undergraduates showed no gains in “critical thinking, complex reasoning and written communication skills,” concluded sociologists Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa in the earlier study, which became a book. Arum and Roksa surveyed more than 900 of the “Adrift” students to see how they fared after college.

The students scoring in the bottom quintile were three times more likely than those in the top quintile to be unemployed (9.6 percent compared with 3.1 percent), twice as likely to be living at home with parents (35 percent compared with 18 percent), and significantly more likely to have amassed credit-card debt (51 percent compared with 37 percent).

Top-quintile students also were more likely to say they follow the news and discuss politics.

That suggests “the general higher-order skills” tested by the CLA are “real and meaningful,” Arum said.

Though business majors didn’t show much growth on the CLA — and didn’t spend much time studying in college — they were the most likely to find full-time jobs. ”Perhaps it’s going to catch up to them down the road,” Arum said.

Filed Under: Careers, College Tagged With: Academically Adrift, critical thinking, debt, employment, learning, writing

Veterans-only classes close, but others open

January 5, 2012 By Joanne

Veterans-only college classes have been dropped at places that developed the model due to low demand, tricky logistics and fears of isolating vets. But others are adding special classes for veterans.

People between 35 and 49 are piling up student debt faster than any other age group. Mid-career training doesn’t always pay off. Do the math before borrowing, say financial advisors.

Filed Under: College Tagged With: debt, job training, student loans, veterans

Obama: Cut college costs

December 7, 2011 By Joanne

President Obama met with college leaders to discuss ways to cut college costs.

Colleges will keep raising tuition as long as federal loans make it easy for students and parents to borrow, a higher education analyst concludes.

Filed Under: College Tagged With: college costs, debt, Obama, student loans, tuition

‘Stop smiling’

December 5, 2011 By Joanne

“Stop smiling,” says the photographer in “School Portrait,” a short film made in England.

“No, stop smiling, we’re going to do something different today,” the photographer says as the first student sits down. “It’s called a reality check. I want you to repeat after me: university tuition fees.”

After the student says it back, frowning, he keeps the ball rolling.

“Banking crisis means I’ll never afford a home,” he says.

These reality checks keep coming, with topics ranging from divorce rates, to climate change to how hard the young students will have to work.

There’s no such thing as “pocket money,” the photographer says. You have to work for a living.