Article Noodle

I would certainly suggest validating those numbers but I speak of NYU only because it was the college in question for this young person. How did we come to this place where a college education straddles a young person with $200,000 or $100,000 in debt on day one of their new life?

Do not get me wrong, I have no socialist leanings or beliefs that say that higher education is a inherent right. I believe college education and higher learning is a privilege, which should be earned and deserved. That said, I also believe all youngster should strive for higher learning. What I do not agree with is this notion that we can guarantee every high school graduate with a college education and sucker punch them on the backside.

Because the cost of that sucker punch is borne by all of us. When a young person essentially graduates from college as an indentured servant of that school, we all paid the cost of that debt one way or another. And that is not right. How many young people know that they will be struggling under a mountain of debt that will take decades to pay off?

Somewhere along the way, we as a society concluded for our children that the path to success was through college. That to be a premier film director or hotelier, they needed to attend USC, NYU, Cornell or whatever school is reputed to the best. And faced with a barrage of what amounts to a college infomercial, what young person really cares about the debt aspect of attending that school.

And for the parents, how do they sit their child down and say, "No." So, further along that way, attending college become a sort of "right" I think. Further along the way, colleges and universities become big money making institutions. Further along the way, far too many instructors became tenured, highly paid professors. Further along the way, it all become an entitlement, it seems to me.

This has to change. And the answer cannot be a government run program that guarantees college education for every youngster. When it becomes a right, it dilutes the privilege. When college education becomes a ordinary option to take or not at the young person's whim; college education becomes no "big thing."

But it did not all happen overnight, and I suspect, it cannot all be changed overnight. But, we cannot have a generation of indentured servants masquerading as our future generation of leaders struggling today. And we as taxpayers cannot absorb the defaulting of all these loans.

Let me also state that I have no answers. I am no more than a schmuck doing the best he can to provide for his family and raise his beautiful girls well.

I want my girls to see college as something they need to fight for, to strive for, to excel for. It will not be "automatic" courtesy of Pell Grant or whatever loan options that is out there.

In the end, I think that we as family need to prepare our children for success, for a life of achievement. That may include college, or it may not. But we owe to our children not to give them guarantees but options and choices. If finances are an issue, the option may be to work for a few years to build up their finances, or to attend a community college.

But to knowingly straddle a child with a mountain of debt on the promises of high paying job after graduation is to do a disservice to the young adult. And that we cannot afford.

Although not a job getting guru, Hyo's been around the block a couple of time. So, come over and take a look at some of the strategies, tips and advice, a few laughs and a couple of words of wisdom that he's dispensing, plus his great list of resources at Landing on Your Feet Blog

Come on in, take your shoes off, stay awhile; can I get you a cup of coffee?