I focus on the unsaid and the data here on Room Eight. When there is something in the MSM that is said, and I have something to say about it, I just comment there. So may I call your attention to this New York Times article and the million comments, many in depth, on the bubble in college costs made possible by soaring student debts.
And in particular to this comment, buried way in the back.
"The expense of college has gone up dramatically over the last 30-40 years, far out pacing both inflation and average increases in disposable income."
"So for those of you in my parent's generation who could work at home for the summer and have enough money to pay for your classes at well funded, public universities, that's great. Things changed. First, wages stopped growing, so you can't make as much relative to the cost of everything (especially education and health care), and it's impossible to make $15k in a summer to pay for a year's worth of college at a very inexpensive public university, much less a private or competitive public school. Second, after YOU graduated school, you all got conservative and started demanding tax cuts while tripling our national debt during the Reagan years because we didn't have enough warheads, and education spending got slashed as a result. The financial burden was shifted, as a greater percentage, on to the student. So classes went from being $20/per credit hr. to over $200+/per credit hr. in 30 years."
"Can we not go to school like you? Best days of your life, eh? I bet they were. You had zero to be concerned about. You took it all and left nothing. We're left with your debt, our debt, and figuring out what we're going to do in the future. That any person who was born between 1945-1965 would ever lecture us who fought for our education and will be paying for it for a long time about over-extending ourselves I offer a big f-off. You over-extended this country, as a generation, and made it difficult for many of us to make it through college without incurring large amounts of debt. Some of you helped your kids, some of you didn't. Either way, Americans from these generations have fundamentally failed us. According to the College Board's 2006 study, a student attending a 4-year public university in 1976 could expect an average cost of tuition to be around $2,400. Today that number is over $6k. That's a huge jump in a little more than 30 years, and excludes room and board. And when you consider the lack of increase in wages, that number is larger."
"And what are we to do in our economy? The policies of the last 30 years has dismantled our manufacturing economy. A high school diploma cannot get you a middle class lifestyle anymore. That wasn't the case when your generation was growing up. You didn't have to go to college. You could sell insurance, or build cars..."
"So, if all you prissy baby boomers who have spent more then you have contributed to the welfare of this country would just shut up. Retire, sit in solitude with your SS check and your Medicare– the two cherished benefits in old age that were created by Democrats. We have a lot of work to do fixing this country that you screwed up so badly. It's like you were the generation of the Gilded Age and the Roaring 20s all rolled into one."
"Some of these comments are so frustrating."
Indeed. Now I have a couple of additions to this young man's point of view.
First, for those at the back end of the baby boom (like me), born after (say) 1958, things had already started to slip. My Dad was able to work his way through school, I was only able to pay for about a quarter of it.
Grants had been replaced by loans by the time I got to college (in 1979), something that was thought of as just. Why should those without the benefit of a college degree, who will earn more, subsidize those degrees? But I did get grants and work as a teaching assistant in graduate school which, combined with other earnings, allowed me to get through without additional debts.
And my college loans were a different kind of loan. Like many of today's students, I graduated into unemployment, save for the job I eventually got accepting cans at a supermarket because the Bottle Bill had just passed. So my loans were deferred WITHOUT ACCUMULATING INTEREST, even though interest rates were sky high meaning the lender was taking a big hit relative to the cost of funding. I deferred as I busted through grad school in a year and a half, too — then paid the loan off ASAP as soon as I started working full time, meaning they never got much interest. The opposite of the tale in the Times article.
It is also true that students are less likely to work today, particularly in the Northeast. In part, however, that is a function of more demanding academic and extra curricular schedules and the availability of more reliable adult immigrant labor. And the minimum, moreover, wage is much lower compared with inflation, let alone college inflation, than it was when I signed on as a bus boy, dishwasher and eventually cook for $2.65 per hour.
On the other hand, there is the problem of young people expecting to independently replicate, immediately, a lifestyle that it took their parents decades to achieve. That's something we've been careful about in our family — trying not to live in a way that the kids may not be able to replicate, and an issue discussed in this recent NY Times article. (Though the article is about wealthy children, the problem extends down into what used to be the middle class). Based on her lifestyle, the woman in the college debt article is perhaps not the best example, as the many comments from thriftier people make clear.
Despite the cellphones and lattes, however, younger generations are getting the shaft. Typical (non-executive) wages and benefits were lower for those my age than those who came before, and with occasional interruptions, this has continued ever since. Perhaps that's why Mayor Bloomberg and the New York State Legislature feel so free to increase the pension benefits of those cashing in and moving out, and then follow with lower pay and benefits for future public employees once the costs, once described as zero, escalate due to "circumstances beyond our control."
OK, in that case, face up to what you have done. Will they? Perhaps you remember this line from generational movie The Big Chill, following the assertion that rationalizations are more important than sex. "Have you ever gone a week without a rationalization?"
Good to see that at least some young people are catching on. My view of the future? Some will owe their parents a great deal, some much less, as the rigid family expectations and sex roles that once limited the both upside and downside were swept way, allowing some to become even more caring parents and others to put themselves first. Collectively, they owe nothing.
And that will be the final battle of Generation Greed. Watching their own children struggle, and struggle to help them, will the less greedy members of Generation Greed finally be willing to tell their peers "tough luck you've taken enough?"