More Kids Than Ever In (Community) College

The share of 18- to 24-year-olds attending college in the United States hit an all-time high in October 2008,Just under 11.5 million students, or 39.6% of all young adults ages 18 to 24, were enrolled in either a two- or four-year college in October 2008 (the most recent date for which comprehensive nationwide data are available). Both figures -- the absolute number as well as the share -- are at their highest level ever...the most recent annual spike has taken place entirely at two-year colleges.

Subprime Student Loans

A fierce article at the New America Foundation.

"The median graduation rate for proprietary schools is only 38 percent--by far the lowest rate in the higher education sector. What's more, even those students who make it through often can't find jobs. The reason for this is simple: while some proprietary schools offer a good education, many more are subpar at best. Thus large numbers of students leave with little to show for their effort other than a heap of debt. Not surprisingly, students at proprietary schools are far more likely to default on their loans than those at other colleges. The appalling treatment of disadvantaged students at the hands of proprietary schools ought to be a national scandal."

I'm really of two minds about for-profit colleges, as my next article in Fast Company will make clear. The important fact is that they enroll these students more than anyone else does. Whether they're "serving" those students or "targeting" them depends in part on the college and in part on your point of view.

As far as the graduation rates--various measures indicate that students who start at two-year community colleges don't do much better.

Kevin Carey of Education Sector made the point to me that default rates are the place to keep a tight rein. If the colleges have high default rates then by definition students aren't getting their money's worth.
Reining in the growth of private student loans, which is the larger context of this article, is crucial as well. Fewer private loans = fewer unscrupulous, expensive for-profit colleges.

Awesome Class at Wellesley Teaches Students How to Get a Financial Life

via NPR;
Apparently, the class fills up every year within minutes. The professors, two women from the Economics department, say that it's one of the hardest courses they teach because all the information has to be updated every year as laws and regulations change.

The course page pulls together a bunch of great web resources on personal finance, budgeting, housing, investments, etc.

In my new book, DIY U, I suggest personal finance is one of the gaps in most people's college experience that might be filled with open course ware, if you're not lucky enough to go to a college like Wellesley--or if you can't get into the class.

Blast from the Gen Debt Past

"Like thousands of other single women living in Bushwick, Brooklyn, Brigette, 24, collects Medicaid and food stamps. Unlike most of her neighbors, she's white and a college graduate—the kind of welfare recipient rarely considered in debates over public assistance." (Generation Debt, Village Voice, January 4, 2005)

"According to a Times City Room post picked up by NYU Local, NYU journalism grad student Ryan McLendon, who is almost $100,000 in debt and about to graduate an expert in a dying industry, has applied for food stamps." (Today, via Gawker)

Hear Me Thursday Morning on CBC's "The Current"

I'll be talking about unpaid internships...it's part of a whole series they're doing on "developing trends and changes in how and why we work."

Students Blocked from Transferring from Community Colleges to Four-Years in CA

An argument for greater access to online programs if I've ever heard one: budget cuts are keeping thousands of community college students--40,000 students total--from transferring to California state universities to pursue their dreams.

The students are from families that can't afford to send them out of state or even 50 miles away. They have little choice but to drop out, wait around taking makework classes, wasting time and money, or go into debt to pursue a private degree.

Week of Action to Support the Pell Grant

Campus Progress, the United States Student Association and the PIRGs are running a campaign for students to support the Senate's passage of a large increase in the Pell Grant and an end to the lender subsidies in the student loan bill, already approved by the House. They urge students to "tweet your senator" which I've never heard of before. Chuck Schumer has tweeted exactly one time, and Gillibrand doesn't seem to have an official Twitter account, so I guess I'll just settle for sending an email.

A Round of Excuses

"American doctors' salaries are high for several reasons. The first is the cost of education. In France and Great Britain, students go directly to medical school after high school, and their entire educations are free. In the United States, students must first get a bachelor's degree before attending medical school, and the average medical student's debt is $155,000." --Slate, "Do American doctors get paid too much?"

“It’s actually a very reasonable increase this year, particularly in light of the recently-announced financial aid initiative and the increase in scholarship budget,” Donahue said. “It is certainly reflective of increased costs, not the least of which is the cost of health care.”--Harvard's Director of Financial Aid explaining why they are raising tuition.

The cost of education is growing because the cost of health care is growing, because the cost of education is growing, because the cost of health care is growing....

Tuition Tips

Source (of course)

A recent, well-informed take on why college costs so much, from the Seattle Times:

"In the early 1990s at the UW, students paid for a third of the cost of their education, while the state picked up the rest. These days, students are paying 58 percent of the freight."

Obama at Hudson Community College

"These are the building blocks of innovation: Education, infrastructure, research."
"Job training as a silver bullet. College as a cure-all. It's not, I don't want to pretend that it is."

but...
I've set this ambitious goal: By 2020, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world. (Applause.) We used to be number one. We should be number one again. (Applause.)

"A former senator from New York, Robert Kennedy, once told us, "The future is not a gift. It is an achievement." It was not an accident, not a gift, that America led the 20th century. It was the result of hard work and discipline and sacrifice, and ambition that served a common purpose. "

SEE YA LATER SALLIE MAE

The House voted to eliminate the Federal Family Education Loan Program, saving an estimated $87 billion in subsidies to banks over the next decade.

Some -- not all-- of the money will go to improve higher education access, notably:

• $40 billion over 10 years to increase the maximum Pell Grant to $5,550 and ensure that it would increase annually by the rise in the Consumer Price Index plus 1 percent.
• $10 billion to community colleges in support of President Obama's American Graduation Initiative, designed to produce 5 million more two-year college graduates by 2020.

Once the second most profitable company in the entire Fortune 500, Sallie Mae has now been relegated to junk bond status and potential irrelevance. This should be a day of celebration for student advocates everywhere....

but, it must also be disappointing for those currently burdened by student loans, as the bill does nothing to make those burdens more manageable. Student borrowing jumped by 25% last year, defaults and delinquencies are up, tuition is up. 100% Direct lending is a great first step, but it's only the first step.

Student Loan Borrowing Up 25%

Says Inside Higher Ed.

"Students took out 25 percent more in federal student loans in 2008-9 than they did the year before, according to Education Department data reported by The Wall Street Journal. The federal data showed borrowing rising to $75.1 billion, higher than the 17 percent [increase] most recently projected by the Obama administration. Robert Shireman, deputy under secretary for education, called the rise "definitely above expectations" and attributed it to the poor economy and increases in federal limits on how much students can borrow."

Health Care = A Tricky Generational Issue

President Obama mentioned last night that young healthy people who choose not to buy into the insurance system are being irresponsible, and everyone pays for them when they go into the emergency room for expensive visits.

True.

However, a mandate to buy insurance that doesn't provide for the creation of truly low-cost plans that cover the services young people can realistically expect to use, and that that doesn't subsidize coverage for low-income young people, is just driving a fatted cash cow into the arms of the lucky insurance companies.
1 doctor visit a year + (1 OB-GYN checkup for the ladies)+ 1 dentist visit+ catastrophic coverage if you have a car accident or something. $100 a month. Something reasonable like that.

"On Those "Entitled" Twentysomethings"

An entertaining and justifiable rant.

3 Great Reads on the Future of Higher Ed

College for $99/Mo by Kevin Carey

Myth-Busting: The Value of College by David Leonhardt

A Call for Change, From Within by Doug Lederman

I Need Your Stories!

I need a few more stories for my upcoming book, with the working title "Hacking Education."
I want to hear from you if you have a nontraditional educational story--anything besides graduating high school at 18 and going straight to/through a 4 year college.

Online programs, vocational training, travel, volunteering, etc. . .

Thank you!

From My Inbox #2

Dear Ms. Kamenetz,

I am working in a grassroots effort to help students avoid massive college and student loan debts. I would appreciate very much if you could provide me with source information for the following statements from your article on higher education in the Sept 09 issue.

"College tuition has gone up more than any other good or service since 1990, and our nation's students and graduates hold a staggering $714 billion in outstanding student-loan debt. Once the world's most educated country, the United States today ranks 10th globally in the percentage of young people with postsecondary degrees."

Thank you very much. I have been concerned with escalating costs, as well as the need for recreation or reform in the higher ed industry, for years. I purchased the domain name collegedebtsucks.com three years ago and have always put off the project for tomorrow. Well, tomorrow has arrived!
Facts such as those you have stated above deserve to be repeatedly shouted from millions of students (and parents!). Please feel free to visit my website or contact me at any time. I would like to use this information, promote your article, and give the issue more attention on my blog.
Sincerely,
Julie Hendrix
www.collegedebtsucks.com"


Hi Julie,
For the 1990 figure, see the post below.
For the total amount of outstanding student loan debt, this is based on $590 billion of outstanding federal student loan debt and the rest private student loan debt. Mark Kantrowitz of Finaid and FastWeb, in this recent article, gives a slightly different figure of $730 billion--$598 billion in federal student loans and $132 billion of private student loans.
For America's relative world standing, this is a recent study (pdf) .

From My Inbox

(thanks Gaping Void)
On Sat, Aug 22, 2009 at 12:51 PM, W. wrote:
Hi Anya,

I haven't even finished your piece, but I think it's great, interesting topic, good info, and well written. I have a question, I feel is important so I hope you know; Why did "the college tuition rise more than any other good or service since 1990"?
What are the main factors that led to this huge cost in such a short time?
Please let me know or where you found that statistic. Thanks
Sincerely,
W.


Thank you for writing.
I am working on a book with the working title "Hacking Education" and I will address this question in an entire chapter. There are many different explanations; the combination of government subsidies, the secondary loan market, and cost shifting from states to the federal government are the top three. Imagine if people could take out a low-interest mortgage from the federal government to pay for their routine health care costs and you'd have pretty much the same situation, with hospitals charging even more than they do now to take advantage of that federal loan money, which was in turn sliced and diced and resold as derivatives.

The source for that fact is the American Institute of Economic Research. I realize people may find it amazing.

All the best,
Anya

BlogTalkRadio tonight at 7pm

Anya Kamenetz: Hacking Education (Higher Education in the Digital Age)

You can catch me live at 7pm tonight talking to the wonderful Dr. Hope May, director of the Ethics Center at Central Michigan University in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, and her delightful students. I met these folks on a speaking engagement last year. This is a wonderfully meta moment as I will be talking about the incorporation of technology into higher education, on a college-student-produced podcast.

Future of Higher Ed: Edupunks + Open Ed

My new article is out in Fast Company's September issue: "How Web-Savvy* Edupunks* Are Transforming* American* Higher Education*."

To annotate, if I may:
"Web-savvy" is of course, a distasteful term. Pls read something like "Internetty."
"Edupunks", and entrepreneurs, and investors, and open-education advocates, and educational technologists employed by universities large and small...with varying agendas.
"Transforming" Some seek to supplant it. Some to tinker with it. Some to destroy it.
"American" global, even more so.
"Higher Education." Learning, workforce preparation and accreditation.