We’re struggling to survive’: student debt still weighing down people over 30

[Liberal_in_LA]

I pay $700 a month in student loans and I didn’t go to a fancy school,” explained Deanna Fox, 30, a writer who lives in Delanson, to a table full of people in their 30s and 40s gathered at the Riverfront Bar and Grille in Albany. “But there really wasn’t any opportunity as far as scholarships go: because I came from a very middle-class family, I was too wealthy – even though we didn’t have much – to get a lot of state-funded grants or scholarships, and wasn’t wealthy enough for my parents to pay for me to go to college out of their own pockets.

“So I had to take out probably 75% of my funding for college as a loan, and most of it was private loans.”

“I also pay $700 in student loans a month,” said Emily Lemieux, a 34-year-old museum professional living in Albany, “and I also didn’t go to fancy schools.”

Young millennials get more attention for their student loan burdens, but students faced such hefty burdens nearly 15 years earlier. Most college-educated people in their 30s and early 40s went to college just as tuition rates began their meteoric climbs, and at or around the time when the federal government got out of the student loan game and turned over the origination of federally subsidized loans to private companies like Sallie Mae. These students entered the working world at either the end of the first tech bubble, shortly after 9/11, in the middle of two wars or at the start of the Great Recession.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/07/student-debt-30s-40s-election-issues

[JonathanRackham]

1. Many college administrators make 6 digit salaries.

There's a lot of management in colleges. College professors with 20 years under their belts also make 6 digits for working 10 months.

Do the graduate salaries reflect the quality of the education they receive?

How bloated are the athletic programs?

[mike_c]

3. I'm starting my 20th year at my current university in August....

It's the largest university in the U.S., and employs roughly 26,000 faculty on 23 campuses and other facilities. There is no way my salary will pass six figures before I retire. Not even close. And I'm a tenured full professor (admittedly only a few years from retirement). There are very few faculty in this system making the sorts of salaries you describe, and the majority make less than $35,000 annually.

Administrative salaries are utterly bloated-- if that's your point then I completely agree. But very few faculty make the sorts of salaries you mentioned, and let's be frank-- most of those who do are experts in their fields and can command those salaries because they know their shit.

[JonathanRackham]

4. There seems to be a two tier salary system in academia

Open access laws for public universities tell some tales. I can't imagine private universities, although the tuition is probably a good reflection. My kids just graduated, 5 professors teaching the same business math course were paid between $53K and $110K. Same 10 month schedule. My daughter felt the lower senority lower paid professor was a better instructor. I can see a senority differential but that point spread was pretty serious.

It's all behind them now except for the loans.

[nashville_brook]

15. biz schools, biz profs have their wallets fattened by special interests

the rest of the university, not so much.

and, that's the biz schools that do the bidding of business. in many universities there's two biz school tiers. one where you actually learn business. and the other where you learn what the special interests want you to learn. guess which profs are paid more.

[Igel]

16. Depends.

My advisor in grad school got over $100k in the '90s. Humanities.

Science & engineers often got summer 9ths from grants.

Professional school folk got more.

But few had the summers off. If you're just a teacher, perhaps. My public institution weighted teaching, research and community service.

[seabeckind]

7. It's a bait and switch.

Any time anyone complains about the high cost of education,

the teachers are paraded out in their threadbare clothing driving their 20 year old civics.

We're not talking about teachers.

We are talking about the beancounters in the big corner offices shmoozing with the alumni over a new stadium. Or the investors buying a piece of our education system.

Or the booksellers who count on deliberate obsolescence to pump their product into a captive audience.

That's NOT the teachers.

The guys who are driving up the cost of education are NOT educators. The only measuring stick they own has dollar signs instead of numbers.

Please stop it. You're confusing the issue.

[TCJ70]

9. From post 1:

"College professors with 20 years under their belts also make 6 digits for working 10 months."

That's pretty clearly about people who teach at colleges and it's what the person you replied to was responding to.

[seabeckind]

10. Thanks. That didn't answer my post.

It is just a further distraction.

6 digits after 20 years is a pittance and ignores the fact that many teachers struggled for the first 15 years. Also it ignores the fact that there are many college professors with 20 years who don't make 6 figures.

BTW, thanks for throwing in the canard about only working 10 months out of the year.

[TCJ70]

11. They aren't my words...

...I quoted the first response to this thread.

[seabeckind]

12. By quoting, you adopted those words.

[TCJ70]

13. Ok, I'm going to see myself out...

...you aren't making any sense.

[seabeckind]

14. Another non-answer.

[mike_c]

2. my age starts with a six...

...and I won't live long enough, let alone work long enough to pay my student loan debt. I'm looking for sustainable strategies for managing student debt when I retire, which I will only put off for a couple more years. I've had a good career though. I do appreciate that. But the debt will never go away.

[seabeckind]

8. So why aren't the wages higher in that workforce?

Outsourced?

Competition with some foreign student whose education was subsidized?

H1Bs?

Monopolization of labor opportunities?

How about cost of education?

[romanic]

6. Getting rid of the administrative bloat will be a good start for academic institutions.

There's no excuse for students to be carrying six figure debt while colleges "Presidents" and whatever fancy title they hold make six figures sitting around doing nothing.

[Peacetrain]

17. I am in my late 60's.. retired.. on Social Security and have two payments left

on my student loan.. yes I was a returning student later in life.. so hello world.. this is what it looks like.. and I finished college in night school to cut the amount of loans I would have to take...and I had a wonderful husband who supported me.. and made the house payment..etc.. its a real rip off.. the money kids get charged.. and adults who have to return to up their skills.. and then try and pay of part of the kids loans too.. it is a catch 22 of immense proportions.. thank you for nothing Ronald Reagan..that is where this all came from

[Liberal_in_LA]

18. Congrats.. keep proof of payoff FOREVER. Sometimes loans are sold and unethical companies come

After payers again

[Peacetrain]

20. Good advice!

[smirkymonkey]

19. K&R