GOVERNMENT DRIVES UP COST OF COLLEGE

Having worked very hard to put myself through college and then taking out loans to help my wife and children do the same, and then working many years to pay them off, I surely do not want to pay on other people’s loans as well. If Democrats follow through with their promises to “forgive” $1.5 trillion in student debt, I’ll be very pissed — and I won’t be alone.

A WWII vet I knew told me he could work his way through the University of Iowa just by working summers. His summer jobs paid all his tuition, books, and fees just prior to Pearl Harbor — and then he joined the Army Air Corps as an officer. Then he finished graduate school on the GI Bill and finally retired as a Professor of English at Boston University.

I too was able to pay my own way through college by working. My parents couldn’t afford to help me other than letting me live with them through my first year. After that I was on my own. I worked summers and also after school during the year, so it was harder for me than for my WWII friend. While my fellow students lived in frat houses and dorms, did sports and partied, I paid rent for a tenement apartment and worked full-time. Thus I finished undergraduate and graduate school with no debt.

By the time my own children were going to college, it had gotten more expensive. For many years I was writing checks for two daughters and my wife to earn degrees. I told the kids I could pay them what it cost for tuition, books, and fees at a state university in Maine but if they wanted to go somewhere else, they had to make up the difference. I worked three jobs; they all worked too, but it still wasn’t enough. I had to take out loans and so did they. 

For years after they had all finished I was still making payments — my last one about fifteen years ago I think. One daughter still has payments but then she chose to attend college out west. So, why have college costs gone up so much since my WWII friend and I went? Because they could. And why could they? Because government started “helping.” That began with Sputnik in 1957 when our federal government panicked and started lending money to promising STEM students to help Americans catch up to Soviet scientists. That program paid off all around, but subsequent student aid programs are what really drove up costs.

Those programs started in 1965 with the Higher Education Act. Other subsidies too numerous to mention piled on from there. Before government got involved, college tuition had remained fairly stable for decades. Ordinary people could work their way through as I did, but when virtually every student could get federally subsidized loans, colleges could get away with jacking up tuition and fees. In competition with each other to attract students, they added expensive frills unrelated to learning. In the fifty years between 1969 to 2019, the price of a college education in America went up over 3000%! Why? Because it could.

Maine is among the poorest states, usually competing with Alabama or Mississippi for the lowest per capita income in the country, yet the median salary for college president in Maine is almost $300,000 a year. When Senator Elizabeth Warren of neighboring Massachusetts ran for president, she complained about college costs, yet she made over $400,000 for teaching part-time at Harvard. Some claim she taught only one class, but her apologists like those at Politifact say: “[University] salaries are determined principally by research output and associated reputation, rather than the number of students the professor teaches,” and “she taught two classes, not one.”

While numbers for teaching staff have remained fairly stable over the past forty years, the number of university administrators has skyrocketed. So have their salaries — especially “diversity coordinators” who average over $103,000. There were no “diversity coordinators” when I went to college, but they’re everywhere now. The University of Michigan alone has nearly 100 working full time and one has a salary higher than President Biden’s.

With Covid 19 restrictions over the past year, few students actually attend classes, yet tuition charges have not gone down. I suspect salaries haven’t either. Academic rigor, however, has certainly been reduced from its already declining pre-Covid levels. As college costs have increased astronomically during my lifetime, academic standards has declined precipitously. As we pay more and get less, students, their parents, and taxpayers are suspecting college isn’t worth the cost anymore.

With the exception of STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering & Math] programs, and perhaps law school, many conclude that it isn’t. Government should consider eliminating grants and loans to students who want to study anything else — and never even think about forgiving loans already made.

Tighten Up on Student Loans

Shortly before Elizabeth Warren dropped out, a man confronted her about forgiving $1 trillion+ in student debt. “My daughter is getting out of school,” he said. I saved all my money. She doesn't have any student loans. Am I going to get any money back?”

“Of course not," Warren said.

“So you're going to pay for people who didn't save any money, and those of us who did the right thing get screwed?” he said.

As The Washington Free Beacon reported it: “Warren told the man her policy would not disadvantage him, but he described how he and his daughter sacrificed to avoid going into debt, while others spent money on cars and vacations. ‘My buddy had fun, bought a car, went on vacations. I saved my money," he said. "He made more than I did. But I worked a double shift, worked extra—my daughter worked since she was 10. So, you're laughing.’”

“No, I'm not,” Warren said.

“Yeah, that's exactly what you're doing," he said. “We did the right thing, and we get screwed.”

I could identify with that guy and so could millions of other Americans — and not just fathers. Anyone who has struggled for years, decades even, to pay off student loans would be pissed at being forced to pay off other people’s student loans through higher taxes.

While I wasn’t among them, there are people who know exactly what they want to do after graduating from high school and they follow that career path for the rest of their lives. A week before classes started in September I enrolled in a community college that September but had no idea about what to major in, so I dubbed around liberal arts courses for a couple of years. State-subsidized tuition was very reasonable and I could pay all my expenses with a part-time job during school and working full-time over vacations and summers. Classes were easy and I did the minimum. With no particular goal other than maintaining a student deferment (the draft was still on), I dropped out after Nixon reduced American involvement in Vietnam enough that getting drafted became unlikely.

After working various jobs for a couple of years I decided to become a teacher, so it was back to school for a couple of more years while continuing to work full-time. After obtaining a teaching position, I attended graduate school and paid for that myself as well by working additional jobs during summers. I never took out any loans and never got help from parents either. As a husband and father, I took out loans to help my children to go to college and they took out loans as well. Then my wife decided to go back to school and she took out loans. It took years to pay them all off.

As an undergrad I rushed off after class to work the 2nd shift while many of my fellow students went partying. Some of them had prosperous parents. Others had taken out loans. I graduated with no debt, lots of work experience, and time-management skills. Too many of my fellow students just prolonged their adolescence four more years, and not a few took six or more years to finish because they partied so much. Should their student debts be forgiven? Certainly not.

Unless they’re in STEM majors, today’s students are indoctrinated by leftist instructors, graduate with negative views of capitalism, and are more likely to vote for socialist candidates according to polls cited by salon.com. They’re taught to believe old white guys like me are enemies of everyone else and responsible for virtually all of the world’s historical ills — especially any suffered by women and minorities. Some still work their way through as I did, but most do not. They’ve become over-reliant on government assistance in the form of grants and loans. Should their student debt be forgiven? Certainly not.

They’ve also come to view college as a “right” just like “free” medical care. They think a lot of things should be free because they haven’t learned that nothing is free. They believe Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren when they claim that all we have to do is raise taxes on “the rich” and on “Wall Street” and it will all be paid for. They’re not taught that “the rich” are not only paying their “fair share”; they’re paying the vast majority of all income taxes collected each year. Neither do they learn that 50% of Americans aren’t paying any at all. Not only do they pay nothing, they actually get checks in the form of Earned Income Tax Credits.

Colleges charge more and more for teaching less and less to students who think themselves entitled. Grants and loans should be tied to performance by students in majors that guarantee employment after graduation. Those in majors like Art History, Women’s Studies, Gender Studies, and other dubious subjects should pay their own way.