Discussion Topic for 3/17: Higher Education and Rising Student Debt
03/14/2012 in Education & Empowerment WG, Next GA location & agenda
Please join us for a discussion this Saturday, 3/17 from 3-4pm on Higher Education and Rising Student Debt. To help us frame this discussion, we pose two questions:
1) What are the sources/causes of rising educational costs and debt? and
2) What are the personal and social values and/or purposes of higher education?
To further frame the discussion, may we suggest the following links:
First to set the student/education debt issue in broader context, we will introduce the following historical chart of the total U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio:
http://www.comstockfunds.com/(X(1)S(zhcstjm31kvsgk34mdo30nj2))/files/NLPP00000/530.pdf
Next, an article that contains a story of an unskilled mill hand who worked his way through school and became a high school teacher in earlier times. (The text seems to have decayed in the blog archives, but the overall thrust of the post is worth reading, despite difficulties.):
http://www.angrybearblog.com/2012/01/define-rich-v-looking-at-historical.html
And lastly, a recent update on the student/education debt in current economic context. $870 billion amounts to about 5.5% of GDP and 14% of after-tax household income.
As always, further suggested readings or links are very welcome. Feel free to provide them in the comments below.
Hope to see you for a great discussion!
mmblanchard said on 03/15/2012
Here’s an opinion piece I wrote for the Bridge last summer about student loans. Probably pie in the sky thinking, and perhaps too reformist, but I thought I’d throw it into the mix for Saturday’s discussion. Margaret
Beyond the Top
By Margaret Blanchard
Racing to the top, college students are burdened by rising tuition and the weight of student loans–only to face, once they graduate, the highest unemployment rate on record for college grads: currently, 4.5%. Admittedly this is better than the overall U.S. unemployment rate of 9.2%, but still, combined with a rising underemployment rate of 25%, this prospect threatens to leave many of our children behind. This potential morass of spoiled dreams and loan defaults represents a terrible waste of American talent just when we need every mind, heart and shoulder to the wheel to pull us beyond a collapsing economy and a threatened environment.
Race to the Top, the current federal education policy, may seem rewarding where No Child Left Behind, Bush’s policy, was punitive. But neither the carrot nor the stick, with their standardized testing, really address our educational needs for America’s future. Obama and Biden got it right, however, with their plan to support community colleges as sources of job development and training. CCV is to be commended for its multi-faceted approach to preparation for employment.
Vermont, fortunately, is full of progressive education programs which minimize the traditional, conflict between liberal education and vocational training. Instead, learners and teachers collaborate, within individualized study plans, service learning or formal coursework, to find a balance between theory and practice, critical thinking and creative action, learning from scholars and following one’s own questions and passions. Vermont is the home of John Dewey, the father of progressive education, as well as Norwich founder Alden Partridge’s “citizen soldier,” Tim Pitkin’s “education democracy” at Goddard, Evelyn Bates’ Adult Degree Program, Belenky and Bottome’s “community based” education, and Richard Hathaway’s “public intellectual.” Vermont education, from pre-school to graduate school, features participatory, creative, experiential, empathetic learning within a variety of alternative, homeschooled, private and public learning communities. Lifelong learning takes place through a wealth of diverse sources from coop workshops to public radio.
But how to tie learning more firmly to earning?
Preparation for employment may not be enough in these hard times. Our higher educational institutions may have to contribute more actively to job creation. Since the federal government seems petrified by polarization, such system building may need to grow organically from our local roots, free of the competition for enrollments which characterizes current models of corporate education. This will require a wider system of cooperation and coordination.
What America needs for her future is not a race to a top where 1% of the population owns close to 25% of the nation’s wealth. The growing gap between rich and poor is the worst since the Roaring Twenties, that reckless era which preceded The Great Depression. We need a leveling off toward meaningful work and shared income for anybody seeking employment. Economists predict America’s future jobs won’t depend on either expansion in manufacturing or technology but on creativity, innovation, and enterprise, through green energy, new media, sustainable systems. We will need those analytic, imaginative, and interactive gifts which took us to the moon and connected us through Facebook. This sort of research and development depends on a uniquely American brand of collaborative invention which counts on each individual person fulfilling what James Hillman calls the “soul’s code.” At the heart of democratic education is the equitable development of each person within a context of diverse cultures and communal sharing. If as some visionaries are predicting, we are heading toward a societal transformation, then education must be at the heart of what we create for our future, our children and grandchildren.
Three recommendations for moving forward:
1. Ask educational leaders, not just those at the “top,” to use their organizational skills to call upon their boards and alums to create paid internships for their learners and jobs for their graduates. It only takes one person to create one job for one other person to begin to turn the economy around. This could be a way of rewarding a school’s most important investors, its students (and parents), whose tuition payments help keep its educators—administrators, faculty, and staff– afloat. Champlain College’s upcoming Summit “Building Partnerships for a Thriving Workforce” suggests such a model.
2. Propose that these Vermont education leaders convene together to share strategies, resources, histories and visions to create an affordable and valuable educational experience for each learner through a coordinated system of trails and options from Assessment of Prior Learning to apprenticeships to graduate level practica. This collaborative problem-solving could build a foundation for Recommendation #3.
Imagine if all of the innovations described by our panel of educational leaders were connected and made accessible to every Vermont learner. Such a sharing of educational resources might guarantee gainful employment and social contribution for many, whatever their learning style or development level.
3. Pressure the wealthy (including the Vermont private college president who made $1,213,141 in 2005) to invest in the creation of a new jobs program, akin to the Civilian Conservation Corps which pulled our country out of the last great depression. Such a program could be embedded in higher education venues which would provide training and degrees to learners in exchange for comparable years of public service –through a wide variety of options, some structured like the National Guard or Americorps, and others, uniquely individualized, guided by qualified, paid mentors. Since it doesn’t seem likely the 1% of Americans who own almost a quarter of our wealth are going to pay their share of taxes anytime soon, let’s invite instead their voluntary generosity, perhaps even gratitude, to help shift this country from a dying empire to a thriving democracy. To transform our collective identity within an evolving global context we’ll need support from many sources.
Marty McMahon said on 03/17/2012
Thank you. The historical context is important. Sop much of the discussion narrows to training and jobs. Keeping the “educated person” idea before us is important, as is community dialogue.
bettypturner said on 03/15/2012
Grad Students to Lose Federal Loan Subsidy – US News and World Report
http://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/top-graduate-schools/paying/articles/2012/03/13/grad-students-to-lose-federal-loan-subsidy