jsupop33
Loyalty & Respect
Death of the College Dream?
Anthony Hales Jr.
Anthony Hales Jr.
For the past two months, Americans have struggled to figure out what exactly the Occupy Wall Street movement is about. Who are the protestors? What do they stand for? What is their agenda? These are the questions that have been asked by many but no one has seemed to produce a solid answer. Whatever the case may be, they are clearly frustrated with the status quo in America. To borrow from a popular 90’s era rock band, there is a rage against the machine. While the occupy movement has named a long list of villains, one consistent target has been higher education and for good reason.
For most of the past century, American kids have been sold the college dream. If they put in the hardwork to obtain a college degree, they will be rewarded with a good job and a stable career. This message has been preached for good reason, commonly cited statistics show that college graduates on average earn over $1 million more than their less educated counterparts throughout their lifetime. For a long time, the simple fact that a student had a degree demonstrated to potential employers that a person was capable of learning and therefore, qualified for employment. American magazines and television interviews are filled with rags to riches stories in which college degrees help spring people up the socio-economic ladder.
Americans for the most part, have bought into the college dream. Higher education has seen a growth almost unparalleled by any other industry over the past four decades. Data published by the U.S. Department of Education shows that enrollments at American degree granting institutions have come close to tripling since 1970. As America shifted from low-skill to high skill jobs during the latter 20th century, bachelor’s degrees went from being commodities to almost necessities to participate in the American economy. After congress removed income caps from federally backed student loans in 1978, students were basically able to attend any college they qualified for and the college arms race began.
While a college education is still essential to thriving in many industries in America, a shifting economy, growing student loan debt and high unemployment and underemployment rates among recent graduates require that we reconsider the college dream. Student loan debt is set to hit a trillion dollars in 2011 and many Americans have no clue on how they will pay off their loans. Considered to be one of the most inflexible debts by many analysts, student loans cannot be discharged during bankruptcy and hover above the head of indebted graduates like an anvil in an old Bugs Bunny cartoon. The great recession has had a catastrophic effect on recent college graduates with high unemployment rates and underemployment rates not far behind for those lucky enough to find jobs. Shifts in the economy have left many questioning the viability of certain degrees and a recent proposal on slate.com by Yale Law Professors, Akhil Reed Amar and Ian Ayres suggests that law schools pay lower performing students to quit.
Despite seeing an arguable decrease in pure economic value over the past decade and a half, the price of four year degrees at most American public and private universities has drastically increased. Driven mainly by decreased state financial support, tuition rose again across the country at twice the rate of inflation in 2011 . This continues a trend that has been in place since the early 90’s. To make the point plain and simple, we now pay a lot more for college degrees than we did 20 years ago that are arguably worth a lot less than they were 20 years ago.
The writing on the wall is there, the status quo in higher education is unsustainable. Young people are paying attention; they see their older siblings and friends graduating with outlandish student loan debt burdens and decreased job prospects and are beginning to ask questions. Then, there are those who went through the system, feel bamboozled and are speaking out at the occupy protests, on blogs, on social networks and on editorial pages across the country. For many, the college dream is starting to sound like a myth and a revolution against the system is brewing.
