Never to Return?
State aid and loan programs are heading south faster than your wallet.
In California yesterday, the Gobernator both reprised and reinvented one of his best-known film lines for the Cal Grant program for low income students. “I’ll be back,” became “I’m not coming back.”
The article I read in the San Francisco Chronicle described a certain Californian “shock and awe” at the Governor’s proposed dismantling of the Cal Grant program, and its potential effect on the approximately 100,000 new students who apply for the aid every year. You can almost hear the anguish at the money wilt: Where Have All The Flowers Gone has taken on a new meaning. “When will they ever learn?”
Elsewhere in the country, specialized programs forgiving student debt for degrees in lower-paying education, health and public service jobs are joining the flock in retreating from the press of our economic winter. Iowa, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Missouri and New Hampshire are just a few of the many states considering the “nip and tuck” of budgetary triage. Education is broke…broken just like everything else.
For me, all the the turmoil again raises the question of the purpose of getting a college degree, particularly one with the dead weight of debt. Somewhere, lost in recent memory, our country shifted the idea of higher education from encouraging cultural intelligence and general prosperity to the expectation (and false guarantee) of higher education= higher pay: “Go to college to get a good job.” “A college degree means one million more in income over a lifetime (false, BTW).” As a consequence, we now have an entire generation of kids loan-tripping to get four year degrees in fields which may well never pay in the way they imagined.
Yes, we need to “money launch” our kids, send them away secure in knowing that they can fend for themselves, but we shouldn’t do so blindly, expecting automatic power pay for four years of James Joyce, or as new experts in Tsarist Russia. Talk to your son or daughter. What do they love, or at least enjoy? Point them toward the goal, which may only require an Associate Degree–or specialized training. If they do opt for a four year program, recognize that the reasons should be to acquire intangibles such as critical thinking, cultural intelligence and greater self-awareness–none of which may produce Wall St. salaries.
The decision to go to college should not be automatic. Don’t expect the availability (or lack) of loans and aid to make the college decision for you. Higher education should be a storehouse, not a poorhouse.
If you want your kid to fly, give her the wings of your wisdom.
What are you doing to encourage your kid to evaluate life choices? Is college more important as “education” or as “career?”
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