As the first in my low-income family to attend college, I took every form of aid
available on campus -- work study, part-time employment -- and held seasonal
jobs off-campus. Thankfully, I qualified for federal loans, signing my first
promissory note as the sun set on the Reagan era. Their full weight became clear
only after I graduated. A teaching salary paid rent, utilities, used-car
payments and insurance, but I spent much of the 1990s freelancing, landscaping
and doing other odd jobs to keep loan-default notices at arm's length.
In retrospect, I was lucky; my original debt was less than $10,000, compared to
the average $19,000 note that the graduating class of 2008 took home with its
degrees. And I was able to pay off mine in under a decade -- a time when gas
prices rarely topped $1.25 per gallon.
Mine is one illustration of why the nation's largest association of educators is
raising the issue of college affordability. The next president's budget
priorities will begin restoring America's competitive edge in the global
economy, or will serve as a eulogy to days of economic strength gone by. And the
signal issue to watch will be college affordability.
Especially during our post-war history, college education has become the
economic indicator that predicts lifetime earning potential. By extension, it's
a measure of American economic strength: Witness the boom times of the 1950s,
0Awhen American colleges produced engineers and scientists of every stripe,
fueling Kennedy's charges to the moon and elsewhere. Federal investment in
higher education paid off for America, and other nations took note.
But national budget priorities changed in the 1980s, when Reagan scaled back
ambitious investment and turned federal grants into loans. Those earlier
priorities were never really restored, though the Bush I and Clinton
administrations made more loan funds available.
By reading closely the budget priorities of George W. Bush, we could have
predicted what has happened during the past eight years. Fewer students would
qualify for shrinking federal dollars, and would graduate with debt outpacing
their earning capacity. The administration would freeze the value of Pell Grants
and cut federal loan funding, at precisely the time when our partners in the
global economy were mass-producing advanced degrees to meet the demand for our
highest-skilled jobs. Cuts to federal loan programs would lead to expansion of
private-sector loan services, and loose regulation of that industry would allow
"creative accounting" models that have soaked the middle class.
For evidence of that damage, just go to Missouri.
Kristina Rieman's parents took Parent PLUS loans to help her begin studies at
Truman State University in Kirksville, but rapidly-accruing interest demanded
attention. Kristina ultimately took out private loans of her own to repay th e
Parent PLUS debt, while still attending classes and working. Her estimated debt
at commencement? $50,000.
When applying for aid, Amanda Backer of Missouri Baptist University told me, she
learned her parents earned too much to qualify for loans but not enough to cover
her tuition. She attended a local community college for two years, lived at home
to save costs, then transferred. She graduated in May but faces loan repayment
of $12,000.
Students and recent graduates aren't the only ones struggling. Some parents are
facing the worst economic circumstances of their lives, too, wondering how to
stretch few dollars to cover their own student debt and invest in their kids'
college funds too.
As soon as he graduated high school, Sam Lawson of rural southwest Missouri
enlisted in the Army Reserves for the college aid. He and his parents took loans
to fill in gaps. To pay off his debts faster, Sam -- now a college senior --
will deploy to Iraq in January for the combat pay.
Finally, ask Paul Brother of Camdenton about his two kids, ages 8 and 12, and
how he and his wife are expected to save for their college education while
staring down a monthly repayment of $1,600 -- equivalent to their mortgage --
and that's after consolidating their combined college debts into one 30-year
loan. They thought they'd be financially stable: He teaches high school social
studies and she's a physician.20But their last loan won't be paid off until his
wife is 64, and every check written to their creditor is one they can't invest
in college savings for their kids.
Had enough? Hopefully so.
Hopefully, the next president will establish bold new priorities, think
long-term and recognize that college education is an absolute necessity for
greater economic opportunity. But solutions to the problem are easy. Fighting
for real investments in opportunities for families is hard.
That's why NEA members are rallying friends and neighbors to consider their own
economics and their kids' opportunities, and to ask our potential next leaders:
"Got tuition?"