Opinion
Trillion-Dollar Debt: The High Cost of Higher Education
W
hether beginning a
career or seeking to keep
one going, the competi-
tive edge in today’s job market
usually goes to those with college
degrees. In our recovering econo-
my with fewer jobs available than
there are people who need them,
there is strong motivation to earn
degrees. But higher education also
costs money – more than many
household finances can afford. As
a result, many Americans are
counting on the potential benefits
of higher incomes derived from
strong academic credentials
against the cost of going in to debt
to fund that degree.
The New York Federal Reserve
determined that 37 million Ameri-
cans now owe more in student
debt than is owed on either car
loans ($730 billion) or credit cards
($693 billion) nationwide.
Further, according to Rohit
Chopra, the Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau’s student loan
ombudsman, outstanding student
loan debt hit the trillion dollar
mark several months ago. In just
NNPA C OLUMNIST
Charlene Crowell
one year, 2011, federal student
loan volume totaled $117 billion.
In a recent blog, Chopra said, “If
current trends continue, there will
be consequences not just for
young people, but for all of us.
Too much debt means too much
risk for a generation of young peo-
ple, many of whom are struggling
in today’s economy.”
Chopra is right. How America
Pays for College, a research report
from Sallie Mae, the nation’s
largest financial services company
specializing in education found
that parents’ income(s) and sav-
ings are being stretched as well.
For the average American, 70 per-
cent of college funding comes
from three sources: grants and
scholarships (33 percent); parent
incomes and savings (30 percent);
and parent borrowing (7 percent).
Students invest in their own
futures by a combination of bor-
rowing in their own names (15
percent) and working/saving (11
percent).
The Sallie Mae report also found
that the recent increase in grant
usage occurred among middle and
high-income families. Low-
income families — with the least
financial resources – actually paid
more of their incomes and savings
for college. Among Black fami-
lies, 51 percent borrow for college
costs and 35 percent of Black stu-
dents take out loans in their own
ing a college is the financial aid
package offered. The value of a
financial aid package, according
to the Sallie Mae report, was the
determining factor for 57 percent
of Black students. Additionally, 52
percent of black students live at
home while studying to contain
costs.
Overall, students who graduate
leave campuses with a degree in
one hand and a stack of student
debt in the other. The average
amount of debt new undergradu-
The average debt new students
amass is $25,000. But more than a
quarter of black students borrowed
$30,500
names to attend four-year institu-
tions, both public and private.
Instead of comparing curriculum
choices or graduation rates to
guide a choice of college, today
the weightiest influence in select-
ates amass is $25,000. But for
black students receiving a bache-
lor’s degree from 2007-2008, 27
percent borrowed $30,500 or
more. The highest student loan
debt was most common among
families with incomes between
$30,000 and $59,999.
As young graduates enter the
workplace, student debt burdens
will likely defer their ability to
purchase a home, the traditional
gateway to building personal
wealth. For their parents, the addi-
tional debt of borrowing for their
children will probably defer retire-
ment and/or alter their standard of
living.
These devastating financial
effects have attracted the attention
of some Capitol Hill lawmakers as
well.
According to U.S. Rep. Hansen
Clarke of Michigan, “Graduates
are finding that their degrees, like
homes at the height of the real
estate bubble, were vastly mis-
priced assets that are now hard to
finance. We must set these stu-
dents free.”
If you or someone you know is
experiencing problems with stu-
dent loan debts, register that
concern
with
CFPB:
http://www.consumerfinance.gov/.
The Trayvon Martin Killing: ‘Walking While Black’
E
very parent raising Black
sons knows the dilemma:
deciding how soon to have
the talk. Choosing the words to
explain to your beautiful child that
there are some people who will
never like or trust him just because
of who he is—including some
who should be there to protect
him, but will instead have the
power to hurt him. Training him
how to walk, what to say, and how
to act so he won’t seem like a
threat. Teaching him that the bur-
den of deflating stereotypes and
reassuring other people’s igno-
rance will always fall on him, and
while that isn’t fair, in some cases
it may be the only way to keep
him safe and alive.
But sometimes it isn’t enough. It
wasn’t enough to protect Trayvon
Martin.
Seventeen-year-old
C HILD W ATCH
Marian Wright
Edelman
Now there is widespread outrage
over the senseless killing of a
young Black man who was doing
nothing wrong and the fact that the
man who killed him has not been
arrested. People are trying to make
sense of the series of gun laws that
allowed George Zimmerman to
act as he did—starting with the
Florida laws that allowed someone
like Zimmerman, who had previ-
People are trying to make sense of the series of
gun laws that allowed George Zimmerman to act
as he did
Trayvon’s English teacher said he
was “an A and B student who
majored in cheerfulness.” Trayvon
loved building models and taking
things apart, his favorite subject
was math, and he dreamed of
becoming a pilot and an engineer.
Instead, he was gunned down by a
self-appointed
neighborhood
watch captain vigilante who pro-
filed him, followed him, and shot
him in the chest. His killer, George
Zimmerman, saw the teenager on
the street and called the police to
report he looked “like he’s up to
no good.” At the time Trayvon
was walking home from the near-
by 7-11 carrying a bottle of
Arizona iced tea and a bag of Skit-
tles for his younger stepbrother,
leaving many people to guess that
the main thing he was doing that
made him look “no good” was
wearing a hooded sweatshirt in the
rain and walking while Black.
George Zimmerman’s decisions
made that suspicious enough to be
a death sentence.
ously been charged for resisting
arrest with violence and battery
on a police officer, to get a permit
to carry a concealed weapon in
the first place. Many more ques-
tions are being raised about
Florida’s “Stand Your Ground”
law, which also has been
described as the “shoot first, ask
questions later” law, and gives the
benefit of the doubt to Zimmer-
man and others claiming
“self-defense” by allowing people
who say they are in imminent
danger to defend themselves.
Some states limit this defense to
people’s own homes, but others,
like Florida, allow it anywhere.
As Josh Horwitz, executive
director of the Coalition to Stop
Gun Violence, says, this law “has
turned common law—and com-
mon sense—on its head by
enabling vigilantes to provoke
conflicts, resolve them with dead-
ly force, and avoid ever having to
set foot in a courtroom.” The fear
in Trayvon’s death is that this is
exactly what has happened so far:
that the story told by witnesses,
phone records, and Zimmerman’s
violent past and earlier complaints
during his neighborhood patrols
shows an overzealous armed
aggressor who followed Trayvon
even after police told him to stop,
chased Trayvon down when the
frightened boy tried to walk away
from the stranger following him,
and then shot the unarmed, 100-
pounds-lighter teenager while
neighbors said they heard a child
crying for help. The prospect now
that Zimmerman might never set
foot in a courtroom for the shoot-
ing has caused widespread
frustration and fury.
Just as sadly, Trayvon’s death
was not unique. In 2008 and 2009,
2,582 Black children and teens
were killed by gunfire. Black chil-
dren and teens were only 15
percent of the child population,
but 45 percent of the 5,740 child
and teen gun deaths in those two
years. Black males 15 to 19 years-
old were eight times as likely as
White males to be gun homicide
victims. The outcry over
Trayvon’s death is absolutely right
and just. We need the same sense
of outrage over every one of these
child deaths. Above all, we need a
nation where these senseless
deaths no longer happen. But we
won’t get it until we have com-
mon-sense gun laws that protect
children instead of guns and don’t
allow people like George Zimmer-
man to take the law into their own
hands. We won’t get it until we
have a culture that sees every child
as a child of God and sacred,
instead of seeing some as expend-
able statistics, and others as
threats and “no good” because of
the color of their skin or because
they chose to walk home wearing
a hood in the rain. And we won’t
get it until enough of us—parents
and grandparents—stand up and
tell our political leaders that the
National Rifle Association should
not be in charge of our neighbor-
hoods, streets, gun laws, and
values. In Trayvon’s case, his
father Tracy speaks for what his
family needs: “The family is call-
ing for justice. We don’t want our
son’s death to be in vain.” I hope
that enough voices will ensure that
it is not.
Marian Wright Edelman is the
President of the Children’s
Defense Fund
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March 28, 2012
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