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The problem is student debt.
Most of us have student loans and the average debt is about $25,000, according to the Huffington Post, for newly graduated college alumni in the United States.
Starting life in the working world so deeply in debt is like indentured servitude. With debt looming over our heads, we will have to accept a job even if it isn’t fulfilling to us, isn’t where we want to live or doesn’t have the wages or benefits we need.
It will make it difficult, if not impossible, to pursue our dreams.
To make matters even more dire, work related to most of our degrees is exceedingly rare today thanks to the global economic crisis caused by corrupt Wall Street bankers — incidentally, some of the same ones profiting off our student loans.
Andrew Sum’s analysis using data from the 2009 American Community Survey shows a startling reality: Of all college graduates under age 25 in 2009, 22.4 percent were defaulting on college loans and an additional 22 percent were working in jobs that do not require a college degree.
So, we go to college to learn particular skills for a certain field, take on massive debt in the process and then, after graduating, find there is a severe, inexcusable shortage of work. This is a ludicrous and unsustainable system.
About one in three indebted students is defaulting on his or her loans, and this means being dragged into a cycle of deepening debt because unlike all other types of personal debt, student loans are not discharged through declaring bankruptcy and defaulting.
One has to wonder what will come from this nightmarish combination of job-shortages and the $1 trillion growing bubble of student debt. Yes, that’s right, total student debt is at $1 trillion.
Students’ lives should not be dominated by the stress of student debt and the overburden of working while in college. Many students work 20, 30 or more hours each week to pay for tuition and living expenses.
Being a student is a full-time job in itself and being forced to work greatly detracts from one’s studying and community involvement.
Education is a human right. Education, knowledge and skills enrich society when used with an ethical sense of responsibility. Right now students are paying a private cost for an education, which is a public good.
Society should help students so students can help society. More than ever, we need to unite and work together to solve the monstrous issues of our time including global warming, wars, poverty, hunger, water scarcity and disease. So long as the rich continue to profit off the poor, we will fail to solve these issues.
In our society institutions like banks and the government are profiting off students through loans. This system is predatory — the institutions prey upon college students to profit. It is an unjust and dysfunctional system that is destroying itself.
A healthy society would do exactly the opposite. Instead of oppressing us with tens of thousands of dollars of debt, society should support us. A community needs to be united. A society rooted in the values of helping, giving and sharing makes for healthy, strong, connected communities with happy individuals.
The United States has the most wealth in the world. Where are the resources people so desperately need for education, health care, food and shelter? Two places — with the rich and the military.
The richest 1 percent of Americans own over 40 percent of the wealth, the bottom 80 percent owns a measly 7 percent according to G. William Domhoff’s “Wealth, Income and Power”, and over 50 percent of our federal tax money goes to the military and is used to produce weapons for unjust wars fought for resources like oil and control over economic markets, as figured by the War Resisters League.
It’s time to change this system. The movement is happening, right now, all around the world. People have been oppressed by the ruling class since the dawn of empire civilizations. Now the people are coming to awareness that we have the power. A world of peace and justice is possible — it is our duty to make this world real.
We are uniting to tell our stories, to spread awareness of the injustices we are living and to demand and make changes to our system. We must unite and create a world that works for everyone. Peace to the world, power to the people.
Daniel K. White is a graduate student studying the arts in liberal studies, with a focus on peace and reconciliation.
Bangor Daily News