The education system is failing American students — hard.
Public education is a dedication to helping young people get ahead in life and imparting knowledge that will lead to future success for the betterment of the national economy and society as a whole — but this isn’t the experience for enough people.
There are plenty of examples of failure in the system to go around, but the most contemptible shortcomings are the job skills gap and towering student loan debt. These problems feed one another.
The skills gap is an issue companies have been complaining about for the last decade or so. Skills gap is shorthand for a lack of fresh hires equipped with the skills to enter the workforce straight out of high school. While employers blame schools, some economists note that job-creators could improve their chances of attracting talent if they paid better wages.
Because of this gap, it is becoming more and more vital for potential employees to have a higher level of education. This situation presses more people into college — and more people into borrowing to pay for college.
In the U.S. there is more than $1.2 trillion in accumulated student loan debt — including $1 trillion in federal loans. The median student loan debt in American is $13,400 per borrower, according to the Brookings Institute.
The public grade school education system needs an improved curriculum that gives students the skills they need to compete in the current job market so they don’t have to invest in an expensive higher education in an attempt to avoid living life pay check to pay check. Change is glacial in public schools for a host of important and annoying reasons, so in the meantime the abhorrent predatory student-lending practices that trap misguided 18-year-olds in debt need to be stamped out.
In March, UMass Amherst students held an anti-debt rally on campus. About 40 students showed up outside the Student Union to talk about the loan burden many were still accruing. How much students said they will owe after obtaining their degrees varied. One student said she’s $87,000 in the hole, another said $40,000, and still another estimated by the time she graduated she’d be more than $100,000 in debt.
There have been attempts to rein in the student debt fiasco, including work by U.S. Senator for Massachusetts Elizabeth Warren.
Her efforts to curtail student loan debt have been struck down, however, by her GOP colleagues. The most galling loss was when she attempted to pass a bill that would give students the same favorable loan rates the Federal Reserve gives to banks. Why isn’t the American middle class considered too big to fail?
The common refrain when conservative politicians and assorted d-bags turn their backs on 18-year-olds in debt is, “No one forced you to take out a loan and go to college.” That’s sick and twisted logic of Jigsaw-level proportions. It’s not okay to deny that most people do need a pass to join the ranks of the shrinking middle class and that pass is an expensive, four-year college degree.
People with degrees earn more money. In 2012, the average American college graduate was earning $47,000 while the average high school grad got $30,000. Minimum wage cannot sustain a single person, let alone a family. Low-paying jobs rarely have perks such as sick time, flexible schedules, and job security. People with college degrees have a lower unemployment rate than those who don’t have them.
Warren’s latest attempt to curb student loan debt is to skip over Congress and appeal directly to the U.S. Department of Education, an organization she says has the power to help alleviate the debt crisis on its own. The department has the authority, she says, to help students duped by predatory for-profit colleges by forgiving federal loans when lenders lie to the borrower or undermine the quality of students’ educations or finances. A handful of large for-profits have been caught manipulating their job-placement rates to court students.
The Education Department needs to step in because the Reserve is throwing students to the wolves. In order to keep tens of thousands of student loans on the government balance sheets, the Federal Reserve put a student loan collection agency criticized for its aggressive techniques in charge of a shady for-profit college going under, 50-campus Corinthian College. Point of information: The Reserve stands to make $110 billion off student loans this year. The last of the Corinthian campuses in California are slated to close soon and students will either have to transfer or apply for federal student loan forgiveness.
Senator Warren deserves public and — for God’s sake — political support in her crusade against predatory student lending. A high school education that allows people to be successful without college would improve our economy. And for those who do enter college, there should be access to the same low rates the government is offering big banks.•
Kristin Palpini can be reached at editor@valleyadvocate.com.
