Working for the Man

If you think that I'm referring to the pediatric hospital I work for, you would be mistaken. If you think it's the credit card companies, you would be mistaken. If you think for my car loan company, you would be mistaken.

If, however, you think of student loans, then you have hit the dubious jackpot!

I'd like to tell you a very long story in as little time as possible. Once upon a time, I was blessed to go to undergrad at an in-state school, where tuition was cheap and the education was good. Blessed, you ask? Yes, to have parents who said the first 4 years were on them.  Cheap, you ask? $3,224 per year per the IUP 1996-1997 Undergraduate Catalogue. Today tuition is $6,240.

I'm not good with math or financial foresight, as you will find out through this post. But I know that is an increase over 15 years. Do I begrudge universities to increase their tuition to keep up with rising costs? Not at all as long as tuition is affordable. Not justified costs, but affordable. And I'm not talking affordable to the upper class; affordable for children of middle class parents who make just enough to not qualify for assistance, for children who have single parents striving to do all they can and make ends meet, affordable for those who live paycheck to paycheck. Most importantly, affordable in ways that do not require students to go into large amounts of debt for a "good" education.

Fast forward to myself deciding to go to grad school. I had to do a post baccalaureate year due to an undergrad that had nothing to do with ears or the sciences. Then I had to finish 4 years of full-time grad school. In a sense, that was not a choice. Our field had made the decision to phase out the Masters programs and created a clinical Doctorate. Could I have chosen to not pursue my dream and settled for a different related field? Sure, but settling has never been my strong suit. And, after all, I live in America where you can be whatever you want to be. I wish I had known the cost to be whatever I wanted to be. Would it have changed my mind? Nope. But maybe I would have done things differently.

I went to an in-state private university for my post-bac and graduate work. No, there was not a state school option. The school I chose allowed me to live at my childhood home for the first few years thus allowing me to be rent-free a little longer. Our class schedule was year round. So three semesters...at a total cost of $23,208 in 2005. Tuition for the current year? $30,432.  That's if I actually understood the rules of what a semester is plus per semester. Oh, and don't forget to factor in that there is no such thing as a full time job when you're in the science field and cannot work 40 hours around a class and clinic schedule. I was lucky and did have 2 different part time jobs over the course of my studies, but barely made enough to cover gas and parking.

Are you thinking "Get to the point!"? I will. The cost of tuition, books, what the universities look at as the total amount of money you may need to survive on for rent and, oh I don't know, maybe food? That all equals up to a six figure student loan debt for five years of graduate studies with interest. And there were still semesters that I was broke by the end and barely holding on until my next student loan refund check came through.

You read that debt statement correctly. Six figures. And with a co-signer they would have given me more....knowing what my general projected income was. Now you might be thinking, but surely if your field required a doctorate then your salary is commiserate. So this could just be a budget issue Miss Awn has. Um, I wish. Budgets are the least of my worries. No, our field's employers don't seem to see the necessity of matching pay to what we put into our education. This isn't a generation of audiologists being greedy (although I'm sure those people are out there) and this isn't to say that none of us are actually make pretty good money (because those people are also out there). But the vast majority are facing debilitating debt and the very difficult juggling act of paying a monthly student loan bill in the literal thousands along with rent, utilities, food and gas.

How does that happen? Tuition rates are skyrocketing. Your general american can no longer afford to send their children to college without loans being involved. Federal loans are the better choice over private loans, but are harder to procure overall. Not hard, but harder than private loans. Often whatever gap the federal loan leaves is being filled by private lenders. Private loans cannot be consolidated with federal loans, their rates are higher (depending upon circumstances), and they are not subject to the same payback plans as federal loans. Basically they have you by the nose and it hurts. A lot. Especially when you don't know these things until you're in hock without a lot of wiggle room.

With the amount I pay per month to be debt free in 25 years, I could be putting money back into an ailing economy. A house payment plus utilities. Credit cards paid off within a year (I don't use these at all, so this is not a source of on-going debt growth). A car with no car payment. A savings. Frivolous things like shopping for something other than groceries. Vacations. A weekend trip home to see my family instead of twice a year trips. Getting new running shoes before my feet and knees hurt. Clothes shopping....the last time I bought a pair of jeans was 2008.

I don't know your story or how student loans might affect you daily. But if you have them, finally someone out there is trying to do something about it and talking about the very real economic consequences of loans. Use the link below. Read up and please sign the petition if you agree with H.R. 1470's points and provisions. Pass it on to anyone else that you know that went to college or parents of teenagers who will be going to college. The chances that they did not have to/continue to have student debt/are informed of student loan minutia is slim. Start a conversation that could help someone else make smart decisions regarding college and the financial options for paying for an education.

http://signon.org/sign/support-the-student-loan?source=s.em.cr&r_by=3267730&mailing_id=2695