Congress' failure to act on keeping student loan interest rates from rising represents yet another blow to a generation of students already heavily indebted and increasingly having to confront the demoralizing experience of limited job opportunities after graduation. As tuition rates have soared and job opportunities have dried up, many students, including myself, find ourselves wondering if this whole "college thing" was really worth it.
Our generation was browbeat into higher education. From elementary school, we were made to fixate on and develop a fetish for the ultimate educational prize, a degree from a college or university. We were reassured that with college, anything was possible.
That was then.
Now, students are graduating from college having spent upwards of $150,000 on a college degree, many using loans to foot the bill. Locally, students attending and living at UAlbany could spend $80,000 for an undergraduate degree. The figures for Siena or Saint Rose easily climb over the $100,000 mark. The same amount of money that in some locales could buy a house is one that today does not even guarantee a decent job.
Now, to be "competitive," experts are advising students to stay in school and pursue a master's degree. More time, more debt — with only the hope of a stable job at the end.
The soaring amount of student loan debt, which has risen to over $1 trillion, will accomplish nothing more than creating a "lost generation" in the United States. Former students will be shackled with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt as they age, and will be forced to spend less throughout their life. Our economy will suffer as many will work almost solely to pay off their student loans.
Liberal arts colleges and universities teach very few marketable skills during the four years that students attend. Even students who want to study fields that do show great prospects in the future — like engineering, bioscience, computer science, and medicine — must endure multiple classes from the liberal arts world for the sake of "well-roundedness."
Being a well-rounded student, while it may make us feel warm and fuzzy, will do little to spur real future economic growth. Education needs to be readjusted to the needs of our modern economy, to allow students to gain the skills that the market demands in a shorter amount of time and for less money.
If today's colleges and universities want to survive, they will need to teach skills that industry demands, and figure ways to do so at lower costs.
In addition, high school needs to de-emphasize the role of college preparation, and re-emphasize the role of providing a solid educational base that many could use as their highest level of education. More vocational and apprenticeship programs need to be offered to young Americans, not just to provide better job opportunities, but to maintain the infrastructure that provides us with the standard of living we all enjoy.
For our generation, it is becoming increasingly clear that there is no pot of gold at the end of the higher education rainbow. I do hope, for my generation's sake, that all I have said is wrong. But I do also know that an educational system that provides true opportunity for students is not an impossibility.
Pete Kreppein is a Times Union intern and a student at the University at Albany.
