Reply #18: Contrast that with my 5 1/2 at MSU between 1964 and 1969 for my BA and MBA

[whistle]

...in which I worked summers and went to school three 11 week quarters each year (initially semesters), was able to get a teaching assistantship for my graduate program and came out debt free. I had worked before and began my higher education at 23, but had no savings or possessions to speak of. I was married with two young children. My wife worked full-time at Lansing General Hospital in dietary and she had her BS degree in Home Economics and she had about $1,200 in student loans which which we paid off. We had an older car which she used to commute to her work and we kept that car for over ten years. I rode the campus bus.

It was a hard ship and there were periodic care packages of groceries from home, clothing for the two boys and the occasional modest check from both sides of our families, but we lived by a tight budget and it was not impossible even with out-of-state tuition throughout my undergraduate program. When I started graduate school, my wife was even able to cut back her work to part time and she completed her Masters in Education.

In my last quarter, I bought two new custom fitted suits and accessories including one pair of dress shoes, which cost us $295.00 with tax. I viewed these suits as an investment so I would look presentable for my job interviews and by graduation in December 1969, I had lined up a very good job in the Big Apple beginning January 2, 1970. My wife was pregnant with our daughter by then and the following year we would have our fourth and last child. A year later we have saved enough for a $3,500.00 on a modest four bedroom house. My wife was a stay at home mom for the next ten years. After that we both worked, put all four children through college and I even began my own business. And there was never one single election that either one of us ever voted for anyone but a democrat.

Now, this is not to compare my situation with that of Kristin Cole in the example OP, or the thousands, perhaps millions of young people trying to make a better life for themselves by getting an advanced degree.

So, what in the world has happened with higher education to cause such an explosion in the cost of these programs? And, why in America is a Land Grant College like MSU having to saddle its graduate students with debt of the magnitude described just 37 years following my experience there?

I guess this is why I have become an Independent although it is not to be able to vote for the likes of a Joe Lieberman or a Ron Paul or that other guy who always ran a 3rd party ticket to spoil things for the democrats.....no I can't bring myself to utter his name...... It is in case someone like Dennis Kucinich does not get the nomination and decodes to run that I could send my vote to him.

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