An excellent, illustration of the realities of student loan debt for many. Among 4-year, 2-year, and proprietary colleges, the Department of Education Inspector General estimates default rates of approximately 25%, 35%, and 45% respectiveely (averaging about 1 in three borrowers). Often, these loans wind up in default despite the best efforts of the borrowers to keep their loans current (They don't tell you that the loan industry makes far more money when students default).
Going to college not about higher education; it's all about business
By Lance Cordill
For The News-Sentinel
"What do you think we're running here, a business?"
So said a prominent staffer in the IPFW School of Education's Education Curriculum Lab back in my grad school times as she kicked me out of the computer facility. At that time, early 1990s, I didn't have the wit or the gumption to snap back, "Absolutely, that's all this place and every other college is really about — business. The business of higher education." Instead, I showed my sheepish respect for authority and stopped what I was doing (conducting business), adhered to her demand, said a few expletives in my head and went on my way.
Fast-forward to 2009, knowing what I know now about how my college education was financed and, I'll bet, how several other students in the same predicament as I was financed theirs. You can be sure I would have done the campus liberal activist thing, stood my ground and created as big an awareness program as I could, warning about the great potential perils of what can happen when an aspiring, idealistic student falls for the cunning trap of taking out excessive college loans without having a well-thought-out plan about how they are going to be paid back.
Depending on who is doing the counting, what lender is presently handling my loan repayment and how many fees and interest penalties have been assessed in my college loan history, I borrowed between $20,000 and $30,000 to pay for both undergrad and grad school.
After I received my latest loan statement from yet another mysterious purchaser of my loans, this has ballooned to more than $107,000. Yikes! This sure seems like an awful lot of money and a very unusual situation. But, after reading Alan Michael Collinge's recent book, "The Student Loan Scam," I sure feel much better about myself. According to this book's author, I am a "victim" with a story to tell.
Now, while I do not consider myself a victim by any stretch (I did receive an initial great ideological indoctrination, started and failed at a small business, womanized myself into local gender study gossiping glory, ran for public office and agitated the living heck out of my left-wing pinko, biased professors by converting to conservatism), I do have a story about this subject of what happens when you blow it with financing college. Because, after all, going to college is not about receiving a higher education; it is about prosecuting business. The business of higher education.
Over the years, my loans have been bought, sold, rebought, resold, reconfigured, consolidated, unconsolidated, used for Christmas tree ornaments, paid for Sallie Mae employee parties, helped build the expanding infrastructure of the IPFW campus, used for others' legal expenses and collection agency tactics (imagine that) and paid for postage stamps. I'm sure there are other activities my loans have financed, too.
As for the ceaseless telephone calls that I have grown numb to answering, the meaningless collection agency threats, the promise of seizure of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness by law, after all this time, I admit it: I am drained of forever being in debt. I pray for a way out of it.
As for this debt, here's a heads-up: I created it and am totally responsible for every penny of it. Case closed. After all, my name keeps showing up on some invoice that keeps getting imputed somewhere. Therefore, I must be responsible for it. After all, it is about business. My problem is, "How am I to pay this off within my lifetime?" For almost 20 years, this question has been answered solely with "I don't know. But, it must be paid." I'm cool with that. This is my answer, too. I've got some pretty broad shoulders, plenty of egg on my face and the chutzpah to wash it off and keep on trucking. But, really, this debt is now slowly killing me.
To parents of students considering taking out college loans or older, returning students, please listen to me about this: "You can borrow as little or as much as you want to go to IPFW, Timbuktu U. or wherever. But, if you choose a major that, once you are degreed in, is in a field that cannot, will not, was never meant to support your ability to pay the loan back in the earliest possible of times, do not borrow! Join the military — just do not trust your recruiter to include that portion of your enlistment contract that guarantees a college loan repayment program. That is another issue. The point is, what good is it to go to college, borrow a fortune or a pittance, if you will not be in a responsible position to pay it back?
I will never own a home, a new car or any worthwhile property. I will never have a wife, children, a family to raise and support. Any chance of getting a real job is negated any time a credit check is done. I lost my ability to achieve a pertinent security clearance to continue my ability to serve in my electronics billet with the military.
Short of sometimes being selected to front a promotions booking or get a TV commercial spot, the ability to generate any type of legal commerce has been rendered "kaput." I am a slave to what was supposed to be my marketed greatest asset, my higher education. This is not all about a series of making many small poor decisions in my younger life. It is about convincing myself that going into incredible debt to chase a couple pieces of paper was worth it.
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Lance Phillip Cordill is a resident of Fort Wayne.