You’ll hear a lot these days about income inequality. But does higher ed only make matters worse?
Here’s a typical middle-class situation in which both husband and wife work and the family still struggles to get by. Both are lucky to have jobs and make a combined average of $120,000. Good? Not by today’s corporate level standards. Add to our hypothetical family a kid who gets into a great college. But that’s no cause for celebration.
In this era where college tuition is pretty much an automatic $40,000 a year, even with scholarships, the average middle-class family still struggles. College living expenses range from $10,000 to $15,000 a year. How to pay? Loans.
If the parents — who’ve maxed out their credit — can get a loan, the expenses are shared by student and parent. Not so great for the parents’ retirement picture. If parents can’t get a loan, then the student shoulders it all, which, upon graduation, may equate to $60,000 in debt.
Welcome to the fellowship of educated men and women. Make that educated and indebted. And more often than not, unemployed, and maybe even unemployable.
Though numbers will vary, the story sounds all too familiar, and all roads still lead to the same answer. Borrow now, pay later. Live off the dream. Higher ed will lift us all.
And as we all know, sometimes it does. And sometimes it doesn’t.
