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This story probably resonates with many twentysomethings who went to college but have not found a job:
I went to a law school advertising 99.9% employment at graduation or 6 mo. after.
After realizing that stat couldn’t be true, I went to the Dean’s office for clarification before my 3rd year of law school.
He said that 10% were enrolled in other grad school programs, 28% accepted $2,000 in assistance from the school, and were therefore considered, “employed.”
I asked how many of the remaining 61.99% were employed full time in the legal field, he said, “Oh, that, I don’t know.”
I owe $60,500 + interest and I have no job prospects. Where is the Education and Loan Commission to oversee and prevent fraud on the market by Higher Education?
I am in the 99%
There is an overwhelming number of colleges/universities that know at the top that jobs are not out there. That doesn’t mean they cut the number of students they can admit to the college or university. If that were done, the “business” or operations of the college/university would have to be reduced.
Instructors at orientation know when hundreds if not thousands of students show up that only a handful will make it. They don’t ever really admit there are not jobs for all the people being trained.
A student might think whether they did well or not in school will determine whether they get a job or begin their career after school. But one can spend weeks if not months looking for something that will bring stability post-graduation. In fact, there may only be gigs for pay in the first year. There is absolutely no guarantee that anything is out there immediately and, for students with student loan debt that basically amounts to a mortgage, this can be enough to make ambitious young people with aspirations forsake them for a job at some low-paying service industry job.
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OT:
WAAY: Huntsville Occupier Gives it All Up to Join Movement on Wall Street
Raleigh’s Tax Dollars At Work
Thanks. Got a couple reports coming on my visits to occupations.
Here is more tax dollars at work
Drones Now IN USA
“At $500,000 a pop, Montgomery county spent $250,000 to get the UAV. The rest was covered by a Department of Homeland Security grant,” reports KBTX.com.
Although its initial role will be limited to surveillance, the ShadowHawk Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, previously used against suspected terrorists in Afghanistan and East Africa, has the ability to tase suspects from above as well as carrying 12-gauge shotguns and grenade launchers.
“We look forward to utilizing it in a variety of capacities that protect our employees from harm to the extent possible and to enhance the protection to our citizens and their safety,” said Montgomery County Chief Deputy Randy McDaniel.
My, my, my. I suspect that the gun club in Conroe TX will soon be asserting its Second Amendment rights to own shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles.
The idea that your Social Security can now be seized by student loans banks is madness, yet it appears to be true:
http://rortybomb.wordpress.com/2011/10/26/student-loans-social-security-and-debts-you-carry-for-life/
Disgusting.
If the government is going to start using taser equipted drones, not only will I support them but I’ll but one myself.
Boxturtle (Either that, or a develop the anti-drone drone)
Ah yes. The Higher Education Scam.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barbara-ehrenreich/the-higher-education-scam_b_47287.html
Nearly as good as the Religion Scam.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RT6rL2UroE
Here’s another.
http://m.nypost.com/;s=2fxAIsNpgs1brjho_oY8Y16/f/mobile/news/local/manhattan/she_plans_to_stray_awhile_opuo0dDOjE39dfRDdUZ1sM
I don’t see how young people make it nowadays.
I’m 60 yrs. old and went to law school in the mid-seventies. Then, at a private university law school, my tuition was $900 per semester. By graduation 3 yrs. later, it had gotten up to . . . . $1100 per semester.
Yeah, 35 yrs. ago, a thousand bucks was worth more. But even then, we thought tuition was dirt cheap.
During summers I’d work bare-bones type jobs, and still be able to save enough to pay half a semester’s tuition–on minimum wage pay in 3 months.
Try that now, ha!
The important thing though is that back then, even when you graduated and didn’t get your dream job, you were virtually debt free and able to pursue jobs that didn’t pay much but were professionally interesting. You could do volunteer work, work with communities, or take cases for free because it was fun. You knew you’d get stuck in the rat race soon enough, even if it was a year or two away.
Not so much anymore.
For-Profit Colleges: Undercover Testing Finds Colleges Encouraged Fraud and Engaged in Deceptive and Questionable Marketing Practices, GAO-10-948T, August 4, 2010,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-948T
“Admissions representative told our undercover applicant that barbers can earn $150,000 to $250,000 a year, though that would be extremely unusual. The BLS reports that 90 percent of barbers make less than $43,000 a year. In Washington, D.C., 90 percent of barbers make less than $17,000 per year. He said, ‘The money you can make, the potential is astronomical.’ “
Yep, that’s the old industrial factory model of education–ring bells, troop off to your work station, ring a bell, go to another station, do what you’re told, produce on demand, don’t be late or get “fired”, keep production up to some gradable standard, eat lunch when told, get permission to go pee, and no straggling or loafing on the job.
Remember how you felt when you heard the 1% got 275% richer.
Healthcare went up 250% and energy prices went up 100%.
At the same time, college tuition went up 439%.
http://money.cnn.com/2008/08/20/pf/college/college_price.moneymag/
My wife is of the opinion that the sheriff indeed got the UAV for surveillance. He’s trying to make sure that his wife is not cheating on him.
And states shifted costs from the states to the students for public colleges and universities.
It’s not just the for-profits that are scamming people either, though of course, they’re a far greater scam than accredited colleges and universities.
Tennessean poll: Occupy Nashville protesters were not arrested on Sunday night. What should happen next?
Remember that mean old housing bubble that popped a few years ago.
Look at this bubble.
http://www.mymoneyblog.com/charts-college-tuition-vs-housing-bubble-vs-medical-costs.html
$250K from the police, $250K from the feds for a drone. Wonder how many bridges in that sheriffs jurisdiction have had their load limits reduced recently…
Boxturtle (We need to find a way to blame infrastructure wear and tear on Mexicans or Moslems)
Law schools are one of the bigger scams going these days. There’s simply not enough jobs to keep attorneys with years of experience employed either in the public or the private sector. Talk to any attorney who’s been working 20+ years, and you’ll find that most have taken significant pay cuts in recent years whether self-employed or employed by a firm, business or public agency. It’s hard enough for them to scrape up a living, but these attorneys have mostly all paid off their student loans by now.
Sure, an attorney can always work for themselves, but if you’re a recent grad with no experience: good luck with that.
Some trolls will most likely swing by here to castigate this young woman for *expecting* the govt to oversee the law schools. Why didn’t she *investigate* the situation more thoroughly *before* she pony-ed up for law school? Well, it’s a question one can ask, but most citizens are only recently figuring out how law schools diliberately SCAM students to get them to attend law schools.
Law schools are incredibly cheap to run in comparison to a lot of other grad degrees. Mainly need a decent library, a bunch of computers and voila: you’re in business. Prospective law students are being duped to attend. Yes, they have some responsibility to figure it out in advance, but what about the responsibility and accountability of the law school, itself… to not LIE about their stats??
This is a reason that I believe Occupies such as N’Occupy Albuquerque should not set up on college campuses, tempting as that occupation of space may be. You can’t really protest against the facility that’s harboring you, and front and center for young people, the tertiary educational system as presently constructed, public AND private, needs to be marched against.
As my kids grew up I saw the state of American education in general go from bad to terrible. If it hadn’t been for our local community college, my youngest two would not even have graduated highschool. All kinds of obstacles were thrown in their way simply because we had spent one year in New Zealand (where they had excellent schooling.) New Zealand? Might as well have been Mars as far as the local school board was concerned. My older son managed to get into the sophomore year at the public highschool after an A- grade in summerschool algebra, took the full year and passed it while they argued over whether his freshman class in New Zealand had been ‘legitimate as to hours per subject’ (even though he came second in his class there) and then, as we were signing him up for the junior year they announced he would have to repeat the sophomore one.
No way. I home schooled, and very fortunately the community college had courses for high school dropouts so he did that. His younger brother followed suit. Then a few years later, that option was cancelled; we got in under the wire.
So next, they signed up for college – but the scam had begun, and now they too are saddled with loans plus interest and collectors salivating over their IRS payments. It totally makes me sick.
The entire education system here is riddled with corruption, and that is now reaching down into the preschool and primary regions as well. I have a neighbor whose kindergartner has an eight hour day and homework! Way to catch them early and turn them off fast. It’s totally crazy.
What civilized society eats their young??!!
when you research the history of public education you will find the Rockerfella/Ford and host of other big name foundations behind it. you will find the primary purpose was not to educate but instead to create a collective mindset obedient and subservient to the system.
“My theory is that employers prefer college grads because they see a college degree chiefly as mark of one’s ability to obey and conform.”
Truer words about public education in the US, including higher education, were never spoken. The four pillars of our public education system are Memorize, Regurgitate, Conform and Obey. These goals explain standardized testing, schools built on the factory model, bell curve methodologies, making students fit the curriculum (instead of the other way around), dress codes, the power imbalance between teacher and student, punishment, the final authority of The Bell, and a host of other institutional structures. A college degree is very much a stamp of official approval.
What “Law” School?
As public funds for colleges and universities dwindle, one of the first places to go to take up the slack is tuition. The tuition increases at the university where I work have gone up about 3-4 times the rate of inflation over the last ten years.
Anyone know anything from the ground. The Twitter accounts seemingly are not on the scene.
In response to mswinkle @ 22
Yes, it certainly seems that way from how Obama talks about education as part of his ‘win the future’ mantra. It is never something that is of benefit to the individual, not only for getting a job but also for enhancing his creative capacity to learn. It is as though the contribution to the ‘team’ is all that matters, the ability to become a cog in the wheel of progress. Not very enticing, to my way of thinking, when the only folk encouraged to actually become ballet dancers are the elite.
That’s why I love the icon of the ballet dancer in practice gear (she/he may never get that lucrative job or that fancy tutu) pirouetting atop the raging bull. Our young people have found a purpose for their crushed educational aspirations in the Occupy movement. They lost out; either they are forever burdened by insurmountable debt or they don’t even try to get into that corrupted system. They want a better future for those who come after them, their kids who haven’t even entered the educational system as yet. When they do, it had better be better, not worse.
Australia again:
Dean of St Paul’s has just resigned.
Thanks for the link.
Most colleges and universities operate mainly on a business model, not on an educational model. Because of this, they are susceptible to the same motivations that cause any business to cook their books or misrepresent their products. So job placement rates, national standing, graduation rates, retention percentages, class sizes, scholarships awarded–basically anything one can attach a number to–get twisted or framed in the best possible way to maximize profit (e.g. more donation dollars or increased enrollment).
A big part of the misunderstanding and subsequent friction here is that a lot of folks think of public and higher education as primarily a collective effort for the good of the citizenry and therefore the nation. But more and more, as public funds decline and privatization and the quest for profit increase, this ceases to be the case.
Or, what is it that institutions of higher education want to produce, an educated populace or profit? These two goals are not mutually exclusive, but when an educational institution operates on a business model, profit tends to throw trump when push comes to shove.
Boy, they are really separating the christians from the pharisees over there. good for them!
And the boards of trustees and major alumni donors are what sorts of people?
Yep, most students at colleges and universities who get educations get them in spite of the efforts of the colleges and universities — and with the help of the libraries and the small number of professors who still understand what an education means.
well said. i’m very bitter about the bloated management and redirecting of funds at UC to those administrators who vote for cuts and tuition increases and for raises for themselves to make those tough decisions! what a sick joke.
“And states shifted costs from the states to the students for public colleges and universities.”
That is precisely what has happened. As an example, state funding for Kansas State University has declined about 1% a year since I started working there. It now accounts for only 22% of the university’s budget (and is expected to continue to decline), which is higher than the rate at similar schools in several surrounding states. Tuition rates go up almost every year, and the impetus to “grow” the institution–in keeping with any for-profit business model–dominates.
I admit to a bit of frustration with the focus on disgruntled law school graduates here. People with post-graduate degrees can get jobs period faster than can the majority of people in the country. These may not be prestigious, high-paying yuppie jobs with corporations (which is probably what this particular law school grad wanted) that let 26 year olds buy $500,000 downtown condominiums on credit, but that matters not.
Yes, this woman is part of the 99%; however, she is not part of the (bottom) 80% without any doubt.
Harry Waisbren, USA Job Party: Bloomberg & his Super Committee Buddies Hear from the 99%
Don’t judge other people’s experiences unless you have been there. There are a lot of working class folks who have taken out student loans to get the degrees that they thought would better themselves.
Think about this. If you are a manager, do you want an unemployed law graduate working for you? Or a freshly minted “wet behind the ears” MBA graduate? In minimum wage jobs?
In the reality of hard times, people have to make career transitions. People with post-graduate degrees normally get to be first in line for the highest paying transitional roles.
People who, say, worked in construction (an area of employment much harder hit by the recession than employment for legal professionals) and have families and kids to feed, and can’t pay off their underwater mortgages, and can’t get jobs etc etc these are the photo-of-the-day material for a populist movement about economic inequity.
The point is that if you are trying to make a stance on economic issues you probably shouldn’t choose as your poster children the best educated, youngest, and only momentarily unemployed victims of the recession.
Unemployed construction workers are less photogenic than young women recently out of college. They don’t write doctoral dissertations on their protest placards, either. However construction (and all the other blue collar jobs) are certainly very hard hit at this point.
Or perhaps we could focus on a single mother for our photo of the day. You know, one of these middle-aged women working at two menial jobs trying to make ends meet and make some sort of life for their kid(s). On their own, with no support from anyone. Single mothers are decidedly “the 99%” but they don’t write doctoral dissertations on placards, or have easy access to movement leaders who themselves come from privileged backgrounds and educations.
Forgive my frustration it just seems that “the movement” that claims to be 99% in terms of representing itself outward picks a rather narrow segment of society.
And the reality is that an MBA graduate can get a job very, very quickly with an employer of minimum wage workers.
In management. At corporate headquarters or very close to it.
Now, these may not be sexy jobs, but they are better than what a lot of people can expect.
Great link!
One of the consequences of rising tuition costs is that it makes it harder and harder for lower to lower middle class folks to get a college degree. Not just because of the ever-higher price, but also because of the need for educational institutions to keep their student retention numbers high–numbers that impact their status and bottom line. Not being able to pay next semester’s tuition is one of the main reasons students leave their college or university. This negatively impacts retention numbers. As a response, schools often make it harder to get in by filtering for students who are least likely to be able to complete a degree. So, for example, a first-generation college student with a K-12 background in under-funded schools and from a working class family that struggles to make ends meet is less and less likely to make the cut for admittance. And as the college degree has about replaced the high school degree as a prerequisite for earning a decent wage, the impact of this cause and effect relationship is all the more dire for the quality of life of the citizenry.
A new niche that newly-minted lawyers are exploiting in Arizona: http://maxblumenthal.com/2010/02/were-all-parasites-this-is-operation-streamline/
Yes, that’s what I’d like to see: a photo-of-the-day showing an under- or un- employed single mother lacking any advanced degrees, etc.
If she wasn’t in the bottom 80% before, she is now. That $60,000+ worth of debt is going to be a drag on her budget. Any job she gets, any tax returns will all go towards paying this education debt.
Why in the world she waited 2 years before questioning whether the education investment she was making was a smart one is beyond me though. People ought to be examining the cost of something before purchasing it and determining whether or not the purchase is worthwhile. The higher the cost the more carefully someone should be examining its worth.
So are you concern trolling Kevin’s picture of the day, the “We are the 99%” tumblr site (which is self-selected in that people are posting their own stories), or the Occupy Wall Street movement as a whole?
The fact is the Great Recession is called that because it hits people who never have experienced economic hardship before and who thought they never would. It is this fact that has made the top third of the 99% realize that the illusion that they would ever make it into the 1% is just that and always was–the story of an ever more rigged system. It is this fact that has made construction workers who always thought that being able to work hard would get you your next job have realized that the alliance of Congress and Wall Street that used to goose the construction industry with subsidies to the homebuilding industry and massive federal construction projects no longer will do that. And that is primarily because the ideology of Wall Street on limited government as so suffused both parties. Single mothers who have been laid off from all sorts of jobs, including professional jobs, have documented their stories on the “We are the 99%” tumblr.
And this:
..is pure baloney. Identify these “leaders”. There are different roles in the general assemblies, but there are no leaders. And the folks who show up at general assemblies include all sorts of people. Even frustrated Tea Party members.
Good for you for homeschooling. As an effort to provide your kids a better, real education, that takes a lot of bravery and effort. Well, institutions hate to see anyone escape their system.
“What civilized society eats their young??!!”
The self-destructive, unsustainable kind suffering from a power imbalance that is giving up on its social contracts.
You seem to be employed, affluent, and have never been unemployed. Good for you. But your assertions are not true (the point of the tumblr site) and your moral judgments on other people condescending.
No, I am not “trolling”. I expressing some “dissent” yes (the title does say “dissenter”).
Look: I read your reply to what I wrote (thanks) and I think I understand (you’re angry at me for making disagreeable noises, and you think I don’t “get it” obviously therefore). I’d like you to know that I think I do understand the OWS thing, reasonably well. I have been anti- the excesses of capitalism for a very long time, in fact, since before the latest photo-of-the-day person we see hit puberty.
I am not “concerned” and therefore expressing some sort of “trolling” or whatever name it is you’re calling me. I am expressing some disgruntlement at the fact that the faces of this public uprising so frequently have nothing to do with the real faces of the victims of poverty and economic injustice in the US.
Again, thanks for reading what I wrote; I understand that you don’t really get where I am coming from, you find me upsetting or alienating; and that on this issue we’ve had the dialogue we can have. Later!
Single mothers working two jobs are probably working rather than at the occupation or visiting the 99er site(that’s if they can afford a camera and internet access after bills are met.). Even after the 2 jobs are done there is still the job of raising a child and maintaining a household which doesn’t leave much time for making placards.
I daresay most of the single moms would agree with this young lady though. Most single mommies want a better future for their children and judging by the placard this is what their kids have to look forward to.
I think that people need to understand that some demographics may not be represented even though they exist because the poorest of the poor don’t have the same access to technological stuff or even time as say an unemployed student who has a laptop because it was a requirement for college.
If you haven’t already, you may like to read the works of John Holt, an educator who pioneered “unschooling,” which is an approach similar to A. S. Neill’s Sunshine School and the work of Maria Montessori. His ideas are a wonderful counterpoint to the dominant corporate model of public education.
I’ve been unemployed for about 3-4 years of the last 10. I graduated with an advanced degree (yes) 3 months before the dot-com bubble burst. My personal career never recovered, really (I’ve done two career changes in 10 years, each a step down). My education, which I am still paying for, has absolutely nothing to do with my job today, where 2 out of my last 3 bosses have been holders of high school diplomas as their highest education achievements.
I am not at all affluent. I pay 725 dollars a month in rent to live in a hovel in Seattle WA.
I am currently employed, yes. My employer feels free to demand weekend and evening work from me rather than hire people because the job market is terrible, and in general, I am in direct wage competition with the populations of China and India.
I have no job security whatsoever. Already, where I work, we have seen a loss of one person from our staff with the addition of two people who work in a Chinese sweatshop.
I also don’t recall making any “moral judgements” on anyone outside of the plutocracy.
Again, you don’t really get me – and that’s OK. We’ve had the dialogue we can have, and I wish you well.
This is a fair response.
I called out single mothers for different reasons – they are among the harder hit by any recession and economic inequity. In WA state, they are disproportionately minimum wage job earners. They generally receive very little support, love, empathy, or recognition from society. In fact, they are often vilified. I called out single mothers because I have never seen a photo-of-the-day of a single mother wrt OWS, nor an interview in mass media with one. I called out single mothers, well, because I was raised by one.
Thanks for reading what I wrote -
Both of my kids went to Montessori. One went to a Quaker school in PA, which was very much like Montessori. They are edgey girls who think for themselves. I am so proud. But collectively, they own $215,000 for two undergraduate and two masters degrees.
I have suggested that they learn a second language and leave the country.
You’d think the government that is loaning out money ought to be verifying claims for accuracy.
It’s downright disturbing that they’d hand out $60,000 + without asking questions. As alantx points out its a bubble waiting to happen, just like housing was(where yet again our government handed out money without asking whether the cost exceeded the value on housing.)
I think that I am planning on retiring outside of the US, myself, if I can make that possible. The dollar goes farther outside of this country and for various reasons (some of them my own doing) I won’t be retiring with as many dollars as I would like.
It is no accident that this happened. The Bush II administration, as you probably know, took the student loan program into the banking sector. Interest rates used to be around 2% or 3% before that. Now they can be as high as 8%. And if you fall behind, they go into credit card type interest rates. The government has kicked this can down the road by letting young people pay a minimum amount if they are unemployed or underemployed. They have stoked the fire of rebellion in an entire generation.
The bubble has happened and has burst with the unemployment among folks with student loans. And student loans don’t allow for foreclosure and minimizing losses. Most folks are stuck with them forever, with them being garnished from their or their parents’ Social Security payments.
Mark Townsend, The Guardian: Occupy London could be protected by Christian ring of prayer
The consequence is going to be a whole generation that forgoes education. We really are a nation governed by idiots.
I had read that alot of kids were choosing to remain in school during the downturn. Although a quick search does indicate a trend of college enrollment dropping.
Forgoing college and university might not be the same as “forgoing education”. We are governed by folks who have been elected as much by the educated folks as the uneducated folks. And all of those degrees from Liberty U, Regent U, Bob Jones U, Oral Roberts U, … do what for education?
More on the SF Sheriff Department and the three officers responsible for firing flash-bang grenades at Scott Olsen at #OccupyOakland.
…
“Yep, most students at colleges and universities who get educations get them in spite of the efforts of the colleges and universities — and with the help of the libraries and the small number of professors who still understand what an education means.”
Indeed. In spite of. And one of the few good things about public education in the US are the many teachers who believe in learning for its own sake.
And they have an obligation to the ABA as their accrediting institution.
It’s probably been done, but some group needs to pressure the ABA to require open transparency about job prospects, debtload, etc.
When a school operates on a business model instead of an educational one, the needs of the institution tend to take precedent over the needs of the students.
If you haven’t seen it, the documentary “Declining by Degrees” is not bad in articulating the dynamics of institutions of higher education that run on business models.
My guess as to why it took this student, and probably others like her, two years to figure things out may have to do with the gap between myth and reality. The narrative affirms that if one plays the educational game, does what is required of that game, and walks away with a degree, then a job commensurate with that degree is the assumed, logical payoff. The stories we tell often keep us from seeing evidence to the contrary, even though it may be right in front of our eyes.
If she’s unemployed and saddled with that much debt, I’d put her in the bottom 30%–yeah, she has some future, more than many, but I practiced law for years in a big city and the $500K condo for recent grads with the $200K beginning salary is in the upper 1% of attorneys.
If they’re lucky to get a job in the public sector, in the majority of places they will probably have a starting salary of around $50K. And even those jobs will have 10 applicants at least for every position.
While I am a strong proponent of the concept of learning outside the classroom there are some advantages to being in the company of others interested in the same subject at the same time in a classroom setting(discussions). Additionally there are occupations(I’m thinking physicians, research chemists) that a traditional education should be not just desired but required because there are aspects of it you should have to learn before hands on practical skills are needed.
Good advice.
And that early student-centered education really makes a difference.
Yes, peer groups and mentors are essential to learning. And meeting rooms are necessary. And some way of proving competencies if you are going to make claims to or perform work for the public.
But the idea of the “class room”, that is a dedicated room at a dedicated time in order to establish attendance and classify learners against some arbitrary mark, that idea is gone with the standardized factory system that it modeled.
The distinction I think used to be made in the 19th century was between an education to become a free person and citizen and training required of an occupation. That distinction got blurred as higher education was seen in the 20th century as the tool of upward economic mobility.
Of course the ideals of a 19th century liberal education in colleges devoted to the arts and humanities (with a little science and math thrown in – the trivium and quadrivium) never was the purpose of colleges. Colleges from the beginning and still are the place in which personal networks are formed that aid one later in life. Which is why the choice of college loomed so large in popular culture and the Ivy’s had the cachet; they were the places that you potentially could network your way into the 1%.
ottogrendel,
“One of the consequences of rising tuition costs is that it makes it harder and harder for lower to lower middle class folks to get a college degree.”
Spot on.
Also the more expensive the universities make it , the less likely the student from the blue collar family is able to attend and complete a degree.
This is part of class warfare being perpetrated on the 99%.
” Most folks are stuck with them forever, with them being garnished from their or their parents’ Social Security payments”
Link please
Read comment number 6 and follow its link.
Ellen E. Schultz, WSJ: Defaulted Loans May Haunt Seniors
“This is part of class warfare being perpetrated on the 99%.”
It at least serves to increase the rigidity of class in the US and decrease socioeconomic mobility. It is a sort of soft power coersion. Most universities in the US are predominantly white, middle class institutions, which means that if a student is not white and middle class, they generally have a harder time succeeding, in walking away with a degree. The declining number of decent paying blue collar jobs in the US over the last generation or so due to outsourcing and union busting only makes things worse. Many folks are left stuck between the rock of few decent blue collar jobs and the hard place of the expensive education required to gain access to decent paying white collar jobs. It’s not a formula for “winning the future.”
We are the 99%: “Now I’m Pissed.”
Indeed. One of the best ones yet.
Wael Ghonim, TED: Inside the Egyptian revolution
I couldn’t find where any provision states a parents Social Security may be attached to recover $$ owed by a son or daughter for student loans.
I certainly agree with you about the plight of single parents. Perhaps, you have not seen one as an OWS photo person of the day because they are working more than one job and simply don’t have the time to participate in OWS. For some, there simply aren’t enough hours in the day. Those that are lucky enough to have a job, or more than one job, and still barely making it are there in spirit, but may not be able to show up.
They probably would have had to have co-signed the loan.
Parents take out student loans in their own names to finance college expenses for their children. It’s a loan to the parent, the funds from which are sent directly to the college or university.
You are right that this does not reassign loans from children to their parents, unless the parent has cosigned the loan. At least that’s how I interpret it.
But it is conceivable giving the mismatch between tuition and salaries for someone to go through their entire working career and then have student loans garnished from their Social Security 40-some years later.
I think the humanities are so insulted, underfunded, and shafted exactly because many times they are not about conformity, memorization, and regurgitation. In my degree program in English literature, we didn’t have to read a textbook and write down exactly what the textbook said on some test, we were allowed to work creatively and critically to develop our own philosophy and voice in response to the books we read. I really enjoyed the interesting classes that I took. However, I graduated with over 50,000 in debt that soon swelled to nearly 90,000 as the private student loan companies intentionally pushed me into default because it makes there profits much higher. The debt is still growing much faster than any interest rate I was given at 18 upon signing for these loans. I will never be able to pay what they demand.
College education needs to be free for all qualified students, and we need labor laws that guarantee that even if you do end up working in a restaurant or retail store upon graduation, you still get a living wage with benefits and paid vacation, etc. None of this disgusting corporate discrimination into what you chose to study at college should be allowed, and people should not have to spend their free time between classes slaving away at some crap job either. Students should be given a stipend for their valuable work studying at college how to make the world a better place.
How true… Bernays taught them how to turn people into mindless bots to be used for whatever… labor.. consuming rubbish… fighting and dying in wars… guarding the palace and the lords.
Can the people wake up and think clearly?
Dunno
Occupy Baton Rouge: Momentary setback at Occupy BR
News9.com: Occupy OKC Protester Found Dead In Tent In Downtown OKC
Brandon Gee, The Tennessean: Federal judge orders TN to stop arresting Occupy Nashville protesters
Heh you beat me. Parents co sign for loans for kids.
From the article in the link: “But this is still a radical break in the social contract”. What? The part of our social contract that says when you borrow from society, you should be responsible for paying it back?
Tut tut.
Heh
That’s ironic considering “borrowing” is exactly what the government did from the Social Security trust fund and yet we hear Congress insisting it shouldn’t have to pay it back. I forget it’s do as I say not as I do from Poppa Government.
I’ve not heard that. I’ve heard them say that the programs economics are unsustainable(which I agree with). But I have never heard them say they will default on their debts. In fact, didn’t they steadfastly deny during the last debt limit fight that the US would EVER default on its debts?
So, that aside, do you think people who borrow money in today’s society should not have to pay it back?
Does anyone find it odd that on this site, trashing the fraud perpetuated by these college and universities, that the majority of the ads are for for-profit colleges and universities?
Oh, yeah. As one of the formerly law school debt-burdened (finally had to break down and accept offer from my mother to pay it off), and a former child-support enforcement lawyer….I know from both ends the Supreme Court decided it. Despite the original intent that SocSec be exempt from debt collection, there are the 2 exceptions I know of…student loans and child support.
Nothing, but nothing can get you out from under a student loan. Not bankruptcy, not disability,not unemployment and serious illness (you can get short-term deferrals[forbearances] for unemployment and illnesses, but only once and for relatively short periods).
I used to wake up worrying about having my SocSec garnished 20 yrs later, because I couldn’t imagine how I was going to pay it off.
As I recall it, the law exempting student loan debt from discharge in bankruptcy was passed in the early ’80′s after a year or three of horror stories in the media…that is, the horror of professionals who could afford to pay their student loans, but weren’t doing it.
I seem to recall a doctor’s Jaguar being confiscated for nonpayment of his student loan. All over the media, made an example of him.
So ordinary folks and legislators got the idea that most debtors not paying their student loans were like the Jaguar-owing doc…just thumbing his nose at the taxpayers who paid for his schooling.
And that was before tuition, and therefore loans, got to the outrageous level they have now reached. I graduated with $15k in debt, and thought that was horrendous. It got much higher because of forbearances and interest, oh, and collection fees. Had the forbearances bc of an injury accident that put me out of work for over a year, and then more unemployment and illness a few years later.
$100k? I might have considered suicide. How do you ever get out from under that, in an economy shipping even lawyers’ work offshore?
“So, that aside, do you think people who borrow money in today’s society should not have to pay it back?”
Your word choice mischaracterizes the critique. It is not a question of having to pay it back but instead of being able to pay it back
They are having just 15% above $750 taken to repay the LOAN. That’s hardly garnishing their SS check. And if they have the money then I believe they are able to pay it back.
Yes, the original restrictions on bankruptcy for student loans originated from bogus stories circulated in the press when actual bankruptcy rate at the time was less than 1%. Over the years, as tuition inflated, wages dropped, and grants dried up, the loans had fewer and fewer consumer protections attached to them. Most recently, in 2005, bankruptcy protections were removed from private (as opposed to federal) student loans because those big banks (such as Wachovia, recently in the news for criminal behavior, and former government entities such as Sallie Mae) lobbied to lock their interest rates and fees in by denying students a way out of their debt peonage.
Social security benefits are already too low for most people to eek a good living on after their lifetime of labor; they should not swallowed up by the same bankster criminals that are showing record profits off the financial crash. Student loan forgiveness and free college education are essential for moving the economy forward. People should not have to endure usury and virtual debtors prisons just because they were encouraged to go to college and sign forms at 18 that they didn’t really understand.
This is exactly why I didn’t go to law school. Don’t bet on it. Most of my good friends are lawyers. I did my research. Only the top 10% or those with connections get jobs. However, I could not stomach $150,000 price tag. I don’t have rich parents to pay that price. It took 20 years to pay off $15,000 from undergraduate degree. So I declined to go even though I could do a lot of good serving the public interest as a lawyer which is what I would prefer to do in the profession.
I want to serve the public interest, but who is going to pay me enough money for me to be able to do that and pay back $150,000 or more?
I know a certain supreme court justice’s son who had to take the bar exam 5 times before passing. He had a job right after graduation though because he has connections.
I disagree. I think this example is good because she emphasizes that the University lied about the job prospects. It is not just the for-profit diploma mills lying it is real bonafied probably accredited institutions.
IMHO the Occupy wall street is about a much bigger picture than a populist movement. It is about an entire political and economic system that enslaves people. It is about waste fraud and abuse in every institution and every turn.
The Universities are corrupt. This example underscores that. The sooner everyone realizes the depth and breadth of the corruption the sooner we can have some change.
The solution is not more school for everyone if that means debt that cannot be paid. I think it means a fundamental re-think about what school is for and how it is delivered. Certainly the inflation in this area that has raged has got to stop. The Universities need to make the prices more reasonable. Make it like it was when my parents graduated with little debt or make a co-op program so you work your way through getting experience at the same time.
People graduating with $170,000 debt for an undergraduate degree in Photography should not happen. (This is from a New York Times article I read a while back. Real story.)
Love this quote from your link: