Web Letters: Out of Reach

Many thanks to The Nation for making this useful summary available. As Ms. Featherstone notes, several German states have recently introduced tuition fees. The fees are chump change by American standards: at the most a couple thousand euros a year. Some German states, e.g., Rhineland-Pfalz, continue to offer free higher education, and the state of Hessen recently overturned a law that introduced modest tuition fees. I teach at two universities in Hessen and my students do not pay tuition fees. Still, yesterday student groups in Hessen called on their fellow students to boycott classes. The status quo is not enough--they want to permanently forbid tuition fees.

Like healthcare and housing, higher education in Germany is considered a right. There are disadvantages--state governments have failed to invest appropriately; secondary schools are qualifying more and more students for universities, leading to overcrowding; as with much that is German, academia changes slowly here--this is a critical issue given the growing numbers of students; many students don't appreciate the opportunity, and a very small number abuse it, matriculating into old age and using the cafeterias as upscale soup kitchens. Aside from the fact that indeed anyone can eat in university cafeterias, the advantages are real--broad support in the population for notions of the commonweal, an electorate that appreciates the benefits made available by the state and the importance of political work; a society that values the wide distribution of competencies and training; a multi-party, democratic culture.

We'll see what happens as the financial crisis unfolds--Krugman is pretty pessimistic about Germany. But I have greater faith in the leadership produced by Germany's system of free higher education than in the leadership produced by the expensive, elite system in the US. As Gionni Carr noted about American university students: "They're treating us like we're ATMs, not like we're the future of this nation."

Paul Abbott

Frankfurt am Main, Germany

What a looooog and rambling article. My eyes glazed over. Why does it take sooo may words to say so little so badly? I just could not slog through it all. A few points:

First Featherstone wrote, "Student indebtedness has thus reached an all-time high: two-thirds of students graduate in debt--about $22,000 per student on average." Gimmie a break. You must be kidding. This a complaint? Most grads will spend more than that on an automobile, and at a much higher interest rate, with no forbearance. These are low-interest loans and $22K is chump change that could be easily paid off on any entry-level job. Pull me out a violin.

Second. it's hard to feel sorry about people who are paying over $53k a year to attend Sarah Lawrence. If a school is having financial problems with that kind of money per student, one must ask, What the hell are they doing with the money? This is more than most Americans make a year. And those grads will get the primo jobs at the highest pay. What are they complaining about? Pull me out a violin!

As a person went to college late in life and worked my way through an expensive private college and more expensive law school, I do understand the problems low-income students have getting an education. But frankly, from what I have seen of most college graduates in terms of their values, their vernacular, their communications skills and their ability to think critically, my response is that an unacceptable number just went into heavy debt and wasted four years to boot. Frankly, our colleges are so dumbed down that the only way a student can flunk an exam is to not show up for it. When I talk to recent college grads I want to ask, what the hell did you do for four years and what do you have to show for your huge expenditure and debt? All that time and money, and we are still "Stupid in America."

John Mortimer

San Francisco, CA

I empathize with the students facing extraordinary college costs. I attended a private college with loads of financial assistance and work-study jobs, and when I graduated in 1982 I thought I had a heavy student loan debt burden. In retrospect and compared to today, it was pretty modest.

But I am troubled by assertions that "a college degree is increasingly needed in order to land a job better than one at, say, Home Depot." Hmmm, I imagine there are quite a few college graduates working on the floors of Home Depot... and Starbucks... and myriad other retail stores for that matter. Exactly which jobs are better than others?

Ms. Featherstone writes of "America's widespread shame over money." To me, a far more distressing obstacle to a sound, sustainable economy and full employment is America's (new) widespread shame toward tradespeople and other positions that do not require a four-year degree. The decline of traditional vocational-technical education in the U.S. has led to a nationwide shortage of skilled tradespeople--carpenters, electricians, HVAC technicians, auto mechanics and technicians. College prep has become the be-all and end-all for secondary schools.

Those of us who work mostly with our heads (white-collar jobs) should well remember that those who work with their hands also work with their heads, too. In many respects they are far more useful and productive--and critical - contributors to the economy than paper-pushers and symbolic analysts.

The much-touted green jobs revolution will require that college-educated, white-collar America wake up and appreciate the other-collar workers who actually make things, and actually fix things, and are talented enough to work with both their hands and their heads.

There are many well-paying jobs in every city in the US going unfilled, because parents and school districts decided decades ago to purge alternatives to college from the curricula. We are a weaker country as a result.

John Morrill

Arlington, VA

This is a very important article. However, while it deals with the growing problem of student loan debt, it does not even mention the stunning lack of basic consumer protections afforded to student loans, such as the right to discharge student loans in bankruptcy. Protesting rising tuition is important, but the real cost of higher education generally doesn't hit young people until after they have graduated, or left school, and start repaying their student loans, where they are subjected to in many cases extraordinary loan payments and draconian collection tactics if they can't pay or fall behind.

What's more, is it is virtually impossible to discharge a student loan in bankruptcy under current law, so this is debt that will be there for life in many cases, turning an entire generation of young people into indentured servants. Returning standard consumer protections to student loans is the fastest, most effective way to bring real, tangible relief to young people and their families who are now dealing with the consequences of the explosion in student debt. Moreover, once bankruptcy rights are restored, this will give the government and lenders an incentive to keep debt levels reasonable, which will require colleges and universities to keep tuition in check.

Returning the right to obtain a bankruptcy discharge to student loans is not a substitute for more basic and fundamental reform of higher education, but it is the necessary starting point. Adolph's proposal is great, but not likely to happen anytime soon. Let's start with bringing real, tangible relief to millions of young people and their families by changing the bankruptcy law on student loans. This demand should be at the forefront of any progressive agenda today.

Patricia Williams

Parkersburg, WV

Almost all states have sadly neglected higher education since the 1960s. Time after time, I have watched while states, given the choice between funding the future through education, have chosen instead to spend the money on the elderly poor and their medicine.

Children don't vote, and few college kids do, while the retired are highly organized and turn out at much higher rates. As we have had more elderly, it has become worse.

With the increasing press of yet more baby-boomers becoming elderly, the non-voting young comparatively disappear. If we make the giant mistake of getting the federal government into running healthcare, this neglect will increase in the next few decades, yet again.

You can't spend the same scarce money in two different places. This is a major factor in California's financial crisis, with a refusal to decided what is affordable with the available resources.

A federal bankruptcy similar to that of Argentina's a decade ago is quite likely under current spending trends.

They shovel money into never-ending ratholes like Amtrak, and pretend that it is investment.

John D. Froelich

Upper Darby, PA