Let’s Look at the Numbers

“I don’t understand why this country forces its highly educated people to live in abject poverty.”

If any of you are ER fans like I am, you may remember Dr. Elizabeth Corday saying that. She said this when comparing the way doctors live and the student loans they have in England to the way they live and the student  loans they have in the US, and she couldn’t understand why the US essentially forces its highly educated people to “live in abject poverty.”

While her quote may have been a slight exaggeration, the point is correct. In order to be a highly educated person in the U.S., you end up having a boat load of student loans unless you’re one of the lucky few who can get a free ride. And there’s fewer and fewer of those lucky few all the time. But this episode was on easily five years ago, perhaps more. And we’re no longer just forcing our “highly educated” to live paycheck to paycheck just to pay off hundreds of thousands of dollars in student debt, we’re now forcing anyone who is educated in any capacity to be in debt.

I remember watching that episode, and a few others where the characters talked about how far in debt they were after attending med school, and thinking, “Wow! A hundred thousand dollars in debt just for med school. That’s crazy!” And of course I then thought I was glad I didn’t want to be a doctor, or a lawyer, and have to pay that back. But I never thought that one day someone could be saying they’re in that much debt over going to college for a bachelor’s degree.

Clearly I was naïve at the time and failed to realize that there were private schools that charged upwards of $30,000 per academic year; if you multiply that by four then you clearly have more than $100,000 in debt just for a bachelor’s degree. But the beauty of this country is that we have choices in our education. People can choose to be in an extreme amount of debt to better their lives and the lives of their children and go to a private school that costs more than $100,000 just for a bachelor’s degree, or they can go to a public institution and get a wonderful education for a fraction of the price. There’s no way to say one is better than the other – public and private both have their positives and negatives and ultimately it will always come down to the program and the industry you are in to determine which is better for you.  But the point is we’ve always had a choice. We’ve always been able to choose a more affordable option.

But I’m afraid this soon won’t be the case in Pennsylvania.  If the budget passes this year with a 50% cut in state funding to higher education, students attending one of the PASSHE schools like KU could face a 33% tuition hike. So let’s look at the numbers here.

According to the Bursar’s office at KU, the total tuition and fees for an in-state commuter, which is someone who will pay the cheapest tuition rate at KU, comes out to $3,866 for the spring 2011 semester; tuition is $2,902 while fees are approximately $964. An academic year consists of a fall and spring semester, so that means your total tuition and fees for one year, based on the spring 2011 amount, is $7,732. If you increase tuition, which is already $2,902, by 33%, that means an in-state commuter is paying $3,859 for one semester. Add the $964 in fees and that takes it to $4,823 for one semester, or $9,647 for one academic year. Remember that one academic year is just fall and spring. If you go through the summer it costs more. So multiply that by four years (let’s forget the fact that most students will not finish in four years, and that’s often by no fault of their own because even if they change majors there’s many times the general education credits will transfer), and that comes to a whopping $38,589.

$38,589? Just for a bachelor’s degree? Well compared to private schools and state related institutions that’s still incredibly affordable. But let’s put that in another way. I’m attending Rutgers University right now for a master’s degree in library science. Rutgers is a public university, but it’s also a highly respected research institution; in fact it’s one of the 63 leading research universities that make up the Association of American Universities, and Ivy League schools like Princeton are in this group. The library science program I’m in is consistently ranked as one of the top 10 in North America. I’m paying out of state prices (I live in PA yet) for this 36 credit (12 courses) graduate degree.  I’m going full-time for three semesters – one fall, one spring, and one summer – and it’s only $12,200 per semester. When I finish this degree, I will only have $36,600 in loans from Rutgers.

So I will have paid less for a graduate degree at an out-of-state school than any of the students who attend a PASSHE school will pay if the new budget passes.

Sure I will have a hefty bill to pay, and it will be hefty because I don’t come from a wealthy background and because I’m not working full-time so I can attend school full-time. But at least that’s just a master’s degree.  I’m thankful for the fact that my parents paid for my undergraduate degree. They were both adamant that they would pay for it because they never got to go to college and there was no way their children wouldn’t go to college. My sister and I appreciate the sacrifices my parents made to give us an education. They were able to live the American Dream, which was having a better life for themselves than their parents had, and providing their children with a better life than they had. But does the American Dream stop with my generation?

Does the American Dream stop with a generation that basically has to get a bachelor’s or some type of post-secondary vocational training, and often a master’s degree? By the time my generation gets done paying for college, how will it have any money to help its children better themselves?

A vicious cycle is on the horizon, and it’s going to push us back. No longer will the American Dream be living a better life than our parents did and helping our children live better lives than we did. In a world where so many Americans already live in debt, the American Dream will simply be living in less debt.

-Christina Steffy

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