What ‘Student Debt Crisis’?
It’s an ‘Education Crisis’ – and it’s HUGE!
This is for my older sister, whom I continue to love dearly and thank for forcing me to THINK! I hope this does the same for her. She posted a meme on FB which was a cartoon titled “The Debt ‘CRISIS’ Solved:” and featured a professorial type showing a board to a student which said: 1. You took out a loan. 2. Pay it back.
Our parents were perhaps the most Republican man I’ve ever known – our Dad; and an equally Democratic woman – our Mom. For reasons irrelevant to this discussion, my sisters are more Republican while I am more Democrat, but for me – and more for my sisters than they seem to accept IMO – that upbringing emphasized the importance of thinking for oneself. The meme post is something my sister espouses strongly and when I saw it I was compelled to post “I disagree”: To which she posted “just wondering who should pay back”.
A very good point which deserved a better discussion than FB would allow – not to mention my aversion to family disagreements being adjudicated there.
My disagreement starts with asserting there is NO ‘Student Debt Crisis’. A crisis is a situation whose result – without intervention – would be catastrophe. Calling failure to repay a loan a ‘crisis’ is a stretch, especially one from the government which the vast majority of the borrowers ARE paying. Plus, the question isn’t about a crisis of students refusing to pay their loans, but about whether there is a basis for the government forgiving the loans: Again a point worthy of debate, but hardly a ‘crisis’.
There IS an Education Crisis! After a 36 year teaching career that spanned nearly equal time in both public and private sectors I have personally observed the decline of education – especially in the public sector. While the causes of this decline are many and varied the one immutable factor is that the only agent that could possibly improve the situation – the teachers – are precisely the people not only being impeded in their efforts, but actively badgered and blamed for exactly the evils they are trying to prevent by educating our children.
IF government is supposed to improve the lot of its citizens then one would expect at least some effort to ease the shortage of teachers. This shortage is now approaching epidemic proportions in spite of increasing class sizes; simplifying – and in some cases eliminating – certification requirements; and reducing teaching time with four day weeks. The one thing these ‘solutions’ share with the shortage itself is a clear and definite loss of learning.
In its wisdom the government has responded to the teacher shortage crisis by working diligently to eliminate public education! Proving the axiom there is no problem so bad the government can’t make it worse.
The reasons for the teacher shortage are many and varied, but to believe that poor pay isn’t near the top is to gleefully romp in your ignorance. A question that for me has always been a struggle to answer is; “Why did you choose a career that made so little money?” Today it has become; “Why choose a career that doesn’t make SHIT for money – won’t even allow you to repay your student loans?” The answer – increasingly – is: “I WON’T!”
The truth is the gap between teacher salaries and the pay for college graduates with similar education has ballooned in the last thirty years and continues to do so. I have included articles that articulate the rift. Another truth is the federal government cannot cure this deficiency. Whether they even should is an argument we should be having with the answer more along the lines of to what degree. Certainly placing the purse-strings – and thus control – of education in the hands of the federal government is a bad idea.
Is there anything the government CAN do? During the pandemic the government handed out ‘relief checks’ and there was no outcry of ‘Relief check debt CRISIS!’ even when some, to include many Republicans, were shown to have misrepresented the reasons they collected this government money. In our history the government has often loaned money to help both individuals AND companies whose success was deemed to be advantageous to the US. The payback of such loans has been spotty at best. Here we have a very similar case where the rising cost of higher education made it inaccessible to many Americans, and the government stepped in with student loans to help out; a largely bi-partisan decision made by Congress. True, the intent was always for these loans to be repaid, even as the money changers cackled over the newfound source of wealth.
Now we have a teacher shortage crisis over which the federal government has precious little control. One step available – the cost of which to our federal government would be more than repaid by the improvement in education – would be to forgive the student loans of those who chose to teach. Personally I find this a suitable expenditure of tax money not just for teachers but for many other fields where a college degree allows people who choose such field to do so far more effectively; but for which the pay would allow only the wealthy few to get started.
My response to my sister’s “just wondering who should pay back” is therefore: “Not the teachers – and possibly not some others who are contributing greatly to American society while not earning shit for their efforts!” I welcome a discussion on the validity of my views, but totally reject ‘The Debt Crisis’ when ‘The Education Crisis’ is such a real and alarming reality!
https://www.epi.org/publication/teacher-pay-in-2023/#epi-toc-6