“If your college degree doesn’t produce enough value for you to pay it off, it certainly doesn’t have enough value for your neighbor to pay it off.”

That was a meme I ran into this evening, posted by a conservative I know on Facebook. The concept is very simple, but it fails to acknowledge the various shades of gray life throws at us.

Take, for instance, someone spending the time to learn a specific set of skills and running up a debt of $40,000. The set of skills has enough value to easily pay back that loan over a relatively short period of time.

Now, imagine that halfway through that person’s final semester, the professor teaching that set of skills comes to class and announces that because of an unforeseen circumstance, the skills that person has been taught have plunged in value. There is no market for the skills that a person has been taught.

Well… the college is developing curriculum to adapt to the new reality, but it will cost that person another year, maybe two, and another $10 – $20,000 to be paid later.

Add to that anguish the realization that the banks making the loans are charging oodles of interest – at least doubling, if not tripling the amount of money that will be paid by the time the loan is paid – presuming a student will still be alive when the final payment comes due.

Even if the skill set taught to the student has value, life is put on hold while the loan is being paid.

When I went to college, I worked my way through. Sure. I had loans and other assistance, but most people in my generation were able to work a minimum wage, or slightly above a minimum wage job, afford to live, and pay for books and tuition to boot! Young adults these days are saddled with essentially the same minimum wage paid 15-20 years ago, while the cost of tuition and books has skyrocketed.

And we’re not taking into account that one has to have a place to live, food to eat, and something to wear while attending classes.

I have no problem having my tax dollars funneled into loan forgiveness for college graduates. Considering my tax dollars have been used to bail out multi-billion dollar companies, bailing out student loans is a no-brainer. The current system has produced little more than debt peonage for a considerable number of students trapped by circumstance.

Better to lend someone a hand than flipping someone off.

Be Seeing You!