Deplores false choices, high debt and pandering to the rich:
This is a better url:
http://roth.blogs.wesleyan.edu/2016/03/23/stem-vs-liberal-education-a-false-choice/
I thought this was a particularly intriguing bit:
I work at a university that’s doubling down on the siloing of different academic disciplines, it seems. I’m happy to see one that (even if it’s only rhetorically!) embraces the breaking down of those walls.
“Choosing to study a STEM field should be a choice for creativity not conformity.” – Great line.
From the link:
Wesleyan charges tuition of more than $50,000 before room and board. That is before room and board. If he is so concerned with “college as training”, he should lower the tuition to a point at a middle class family can afford. As the system is setup now, only the independently wealthy or those with below average income can afford to attend Wesleyan without going into substantial debt or draining life savings.
What are Wesleyan’s financial aid practices? If a university meets need (real need, which the EFC may or may not reflect), it doesn’t matter in any way what their sticker price is for this discussion.
BTW, Mr. Roth made nearly $800,000 in 2014.
@Zinhead - how do you define “substantial debt”? Wesleyan’s standard maximum allowable direct student loans cap out at $20,000. Nowadays, people carry that much on their credit cards.
@circuitrider - What do Wesleyan’s standard maximum allowable parent plus loans cap out at?
@Zinhead - I would welcome any data on that. Where do you think they should be capped?
Wesleyan’s NPC says, for married parents with one kid in college and specified parental income from equal amounts of wage/salary for each parent:
Parental income Net price
$ 20,000 $ 3,950 (including $2,750 work study)
$ 60,000 $11,412 (including $2,750 work study and $3,500 loan)
$100,000 $21,291 (including $2,750 work study and $3,500 loan)
$140,000 $32,637 (including $2,750 work study and $3,500 loan)
I really like what he is saying, but agree that Wesleyan’s Sky-high sticker price, whatever their financial aid policies are, somewhat negates his message. As far as his high salary, that just shows that someone can major in History and Psychology at a LAC and go on to a high paying and fulfilling career, which is what many CC contrarians are (correctly) asserting all the time.
$20,000 in credit care debt as normal? Yikes. Even worse if that is not considered bad.
What’s in YOUR wallet?
In 2015, the average credit card debt owed by households who carried credit card debt (read: the average for all households would have been lower, but I don’t know by how much) was $15,762.
So yeah, above average, but not by all that much, really.
Acceptable debt loads will vary based on job prospects. For example, when I went back to school for a masters, the ROI was strong and I was able to pay off my student loan debt in a couple of years. $20,000, $30,000 or even $50,000 would have been sustainable.
On the other hand, I had an administrative assistant once who had a BFA in acting from a well thought-of private university. After graduating, her paid acting career lasted a whole of four weeks, and she took a series of food service, retail and secretarial jobs to support herself. When I knew her, she was in early 30’s and still paying off student loan debt. She was working at a position that did not require a four year degree and, due her debt, she had to live in a substandard apartment with over an hour’s commute to her job. During the 2008 recession, she ended up moving back in with her mother, and today is still a secretary. For that person, no amount of college debt was sustainable as her degree did little to enhance her earning power.
If you went through the secretarial pool at this particular company I worked at, you would find lots of people in similar situations; they graduated with a humanities or similar degree, and couldn’t find work in their “follow their dream” fields. Our copy boy, whose job was to handle mail and print and bind professional reports, had a masters degree. He paid for six years of schooling to hold down a job that someone with a high school diploma could have done just as easily.
About 33 percent of college graduates in the US have jobs that do not require a college degree, and I would wager than STEM and business graduates make up a very small percentage of people in that category.
Then, why isn’t the student default rate 33%?
@circuitrider - I did answer the question with:
For that particular person who did not financially benefit from her degree, any amount of debt was too much. She would have been better off taking acting classes at a local community college. As for the debt of the secretarial pool, that is an unreasonable question.
Per post #10, a family with an income of $60K (which is more than the national median) pays less than ~$11,412/year for Wesleyan. That’s about half the full-sticker COA for a year at the public flagship in my state. A student in this state whose family makes ~$60K would pay more to attend a directional state university, at in-state prices after aid, than s/he would to attend Wesleyan.
According to this report by the St. Louis Fed, the delinquency rate is 27.3 percent. As you probably know, student loads are typically not dis-chargeable in bankruptcy court. Even if people can’t find jobs that require a degree, they are required to pay back their loans.