Denison
I am a proud 1978 graduate of Denison University in Granville, Ohio. Denison was a perfect place for me: an academic “castle on a hill” in a small rural town. I could focus on academics, gathering my thoughts as I hiked the hills and forests nearby. The Denison professors were challenging and incredibly helpful, and the community knew how to have fun as well as study. Denison gave me the academic freedom to explore all of subjects that fascinated me – the intersection of history, government and politics in American life.
A bigger institution wouldn’t have “flexed” their program the way Denison did. I managed to graduate in four years, while I spent a semester as a political campaign operative, a semester studying in Washington, DC, and a semester student teaching. While I did have some early struggles, in the end, it was the perfect place for me.
I attended Denison from the fall of 1974 until the spring of 1978. In the Great Depression, my Dad worked his way through the University of Cincinnati, living at home. Mom went to London University staying at home as well. It was my parents life-goal to take care of all three of their kids’ college educations. So I was privileged to not be saddled with college debt, and my parents were able to afford the room, board and tuition of less than $18000 a year. It was a great gift for life. I still managed to build a student loan debt, but it was in graduate school. I ultimately paid that off.
Cost of the Dream
Today to attend Denison, it costs $73000 a year. There’s lots of financial aid available, and a high percentage of students take advantage of that. That’s no surprise: it’s hard to imagine being able to afford to pay for a four-year college degree costing almost $300000. It’s still a great education, and small liberal arts colleges still have an important place in American education. But the costs are truly amazing.
To send my son to a public university a decade ago, was $40000 a year. America’s reality is, no one is “working their way through school” the way my Dad did in the 1930’s. In order to get a four-year college degree today, there are only three alternatives: be so gifted in some way that you get a scholarship, be so wealthy that you can pay, or borrow the money.
At the same time, the educational requirements for getting and advancing in the workplace increasingly require a four-year degree. And this is the “American dream”: working to gain an education in order to advance. Parents would love to “gift” this to their children the way my parents did for me, and we did for our son. But to do it today, most have to borrow the money.
Loan Forgiveness
Yesterday President Biden announced that $10000 of college loan debts would be forgiven. In fact, if a student qualified for Pell Grants, an income based award, $20000 will be forgiven. Forty-eight million Americans owe college debt today, a total of $1.75 Trillion. The loan forgiveness President Biden offered will reduce that by $500 Billion.
Biden compared his student loan forgiveness program to the PPP program for businesses during the Covid pandemic. In that program $800 Billion was loaned and forgiven to businesses to maintain employees’ wages. Biden made it clear that he recognized that in any program like this, there would be unfairness. Some businesses went under during Covid despite the PPP program and some businesses survived without qualifying for PPP. With student loan forgiveness, there’s always going to be those who “would’ve gone” or “wouldn’t have paid” if they had known.
“If I had known there was going to be a PPP program, I would have started a business.”
“If I had known there was going to be student loan forgiveness, I would have borrowed more.”
There’s no way to be “fair” when solving a problem that’s gone on for far too long. There are always those that suffered before things were improved – we should still fix the problem now. Student loan debt has saddled millions, stifling their economic lives. They can’t start families, they can’t buy houses, they can’t participate in the economy. They can just make their monthly payments to MOHELA or the other student loan services. The only “big winners” from the student debt, are the loan companies. For the good of our society, we need to resolve this problem.
The Real Problem
But it does mean we should look at the greater issue; the cost of education.
In the United States we “guarantee” free public education, Kindergarten through twelfth grade. But in our modern, technical world, we find that thirteen years simply isn’t enough to prepare both a workforce and an intelligent voting citizenry. We need to add four more years to the program, two years of pre-school, and two years of post-high school education. The two years after high school could be the first two years of a four year program, or it could be some kind of vocational education or certification. But to take eighteen year-olds just out of high school and say “It’s all on you now”, in our modern highly technical and highly expensive society, just doesn’t make sense.
And the cost of college education soared well beyond inflation in the past forty years. Certainly easy access to student loan money was part of that spiral; and the entire way we pay for higher education should be up for examination. But in the meantime, it’s good that the government is taking steps.
So thanks President Biden for addressing the problem. You’re going to take a lot of “guff”. Some are going to say that it’s the “…plumbers and construction workers…” who are going to pay for those “snotty college kids”. But we know that’s not how it should be – it should be those multi-billion dollar corporations who don’t pay any income taxes that should be picking up this tab.
I know you’re working on that one too.
PostScript
A little note to those “local” to Pataskala. Gas prices from 270 east on Broad Street – $3.13 a gallon – until you reach “downtown” Pataskala – then it’s $3.64. That’s our “Amazon” price bubble!!! And it’s all down more than a dollar from a few months ago. Oh – and the Columbus Teacher’s strike that I wrote about yesterday, was settled last night. Hope they got what they needed!!
