Student Loan Debt...

[tblue37]

29. I teach college, and while I believe tuition rates, textbook costs, and

many other college costs are a racket, I am also appalled at the carelessness of students who take on the debt. I know one boy, 23 years old now, who took out $80,000 in loans over 3 semesters, but because of poor attendance ended up flunking out--even though he is bright and capable. For example, he earned an "A" in one class, but it was converted to a "D" because of poor attendance. That sort of thing happened to him in other classes, too, but in many classes he not only lost points for nonattendance, but also because he did badly on exams. He didn't learn material covered in class, didn't do a lot of the assigned readings, etc.

I also see many students in my freshman English courses who are so unprepared for college level work that I know they can't maintain a passing GPA, so the loan money they take out for their first 2 or 3 semesters is a complete waste.

Many students also don't recognize the loans as real money or real debt. That is part of why they keep taking out more loans, even when it is obvious that they are not likely to be able to pay their debt. But it is also a large part of why they don't take on part time jobs and why they spend extravagantly rather than trying to be even a little bit frugal.

I know one girl who ended up with $1000 more in loan money than she needed for her expenses one year. Instead of saving it for the next year's expenses, she decided to have an "adventure." She had never been to a casino, so she went to one and gambled away the entire $1000 in one short evening!

I also am appalled by kids from families of limited means who refuse to start out at jucos, where they can earn about 2 years' worth of credits while paying about 1/2 the cost per credit, and while saving money while living at home or sharing an apartment with friends to save on living expenses. And since jucos have such flexible class schedules to accommodate adult students and people with families and jobs, the student could have a part time job while taking a full class load, or take a part time class load while working a full time job.

I asked one desperately indebted student why she had come to the university her freshman year, when her older sister had wisely gone to juco for two years before transfering to the university. She said she wanted to enjoy the FULL college experience, including sports, sorority life, parties, etc.

Oh, and there was a student in my class a year ago whose GPA was destroyed by her having to work two jobs--one full time, one part time. She never slept (except in class, when she managed to attend, which was only about half the time), never had time to do homework, and was constantly sick from stress and exhaustion.

But she was in a sorority, dang it, and she wasn't going to give that up, even though she openly admitted she couldn't afford it!

She ended up having to leave the sorority, because they have a GPA minimum, and eventually she had to drop out of school, too, because she couldn't maintain the even lower GPA required to stay in school.

Too many kids go deeply into debt--and many parents foolishly go into debt, too--when the kids are too academically unprepared and too immature to handle college level work or to carefully handle their finances so they don't have to keep borrowing more and more and more.

For a variety of reasons, each year approximately 20%-25% of all first-year students across the country fail to complete their first year of college. Although the debt they rack up during their brief time in college is disastrous for many of them, in a way they are the lucky ones, because they leave school before they have had a chance to rack up the level of debt their peers who stay in school end up taking on.