[-empyre-] Debt Culture--types of debt

[Deena Larsen]

I agree with Brian's discourse, and it is a complicated problem:
 
>How can crippling debt become an issue on campus, given that the students have yet to be affected by it, while the faculty are actually paid with student debt? How to break the status quo of isolation and corruption? What can we do to transform the basis of social solidarity that Annie talks about in her post?

 
Thanks to the "truth in lending" credit cards now calculate the amount of interest paid and the amount of time if you pay the minimum payment. The difficulty is that this does not translate well to student loans. Putting a price on an education as a "cost" and showing the only "benefit" as a potentially higher salary is a lousy way of doing a cost /benefit analysis--kind of like saying the only "benefit" worth mentioning in the Grand Canyon is the ability to channel water (fish, beauty, etc. don't count). 
 
So...either you find a way to calculate non-use values, and the risks of not having an educated populace or individual, or you completley revamp the school system. 
 
I wonder how students/faculty/society would react to a proposal along the lines of:
 
The state provides 4 years worth of academic credit tuition for each student. Students would still have to pay for books, living expenses, etc.  Then, in return, students' future wages are garnished at 10 percent for their lifetime...
Some would manage to repay that "loan" a hundred fold, while others would never repay it at all.
 
There are other educational-fudning methods out there.
 
Deena Larsen
http://www.deenalarsen.net/
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