Tom Finneran: How Much Is That College In The Window?
Friday, April 12, 2013
College commencement season will soon be upon us and that’s a big deal here in New England. High school seniors are making decisions about their next steps out into the world. Young parents are trying to figure out pre-K, kindergarten, public, private, parochial, or perhaps even home-schooling options. Lurking behind all these ceremonies and decisions is the ominous topic of cost.
Education has become very big business. And, it has become so hideously expensive for all but the super wealthiest one-tenth of one percent of American households that it is becoming virtually unaffordable. The cost of college is bad enough. Then comes grad school---law, medicine, business, science---which creates another mountain of debt for its graduates. How about day care/early childhood options for young working parents? Have you heard the horror stories there? I know several young couples, smart, successful, hard-working folks who are just completely overwhelmed by the cost of having their children schooled or cared for while they are at work. Already overwhelmed by their college and graduate school loans, those parents now pay forty, fifty, even sixty thousand dollars a year to send their two or three kids off to school each day. We’re not talking about Harvard here. We are talking about pre-K! You know—crayons, building blocks, children’s books with lots of pictures, drawing paper, and nap mats. I’ve given up trying to figure out how young people make ends meet.
I’m reminded of a bumper sticker that posed the question “if you think education is expensive, try ignorance”. At first blush, it’s a good reminder that the alternative to education is unthinkable for individuals and for society. Upon further thought however, the bumper sticker is really a glib avoidance of a severe problem, that is, the reality of reasonably affordable education growing far beyond the financial reach of America’s middle class. To the wiseguy who authored the bumper sticker, no one is arguing for ignorance and illiteracy. Indeed, people’s frustration springs from a keen appreciation of the importance and value of education for oneself and one’s children, a concomitant determination to provide such an education, and an increasingly bitter cup that seems to mock those who play by America’s old-fashioned rules of sacrifice, study, and work.
For that nice young couple down the street with the three young children, consider their daily routine---they leave for work early and they consider themselves blessed that a neighbor, an in-law, or a parent will get the little ones off to school safely. They work hard and they work late and they have their dreams for those children. At night, they consider what the future holds for them and as responsible parents they’d love to set aside some money for the cost of college. Here’s what they see for their four year old daughter: for private college, $130,000 a year, for public universities, $58,000 a year in-state, $100,000 a year out-of-state. They have three children for God’s sake!!!! Do you know anyone in your entire universe who can afford such sums of money? In fact, our not so hypothetical couple might like to have more children but at this point they cannot consider it, so stressed and so strained are their lives. This is no way to live.
I don’t want to end on such a depressing note, so I’ll offer a prediction---the higher education cookie is about to crumble. When things become irrational, rational alternatives develop. When hard-working “successful” American couples are overwhelmed by the madness of the cost of college, they will seek out credible alternatives. Some alternatives are already out there---the service academies, technical schools and colleges, coop education---and some are beginning to emerge and accelerate. Consider on-line learning where the big name right now is the University of Phoenix. Our very own UMass is moving ahead on this front as well. And Harvard/M.I.T. are beginning to offer joint on-line courses. A day of reckoning looms and it is as revolutionary as anything you could imagine---accomplished professors and lecturers sharing insights and lessons, not in some musty classroom with 25 students but in front of a computer connecting them to countless students on-line. As with any revolution, there will be plenty of bumps and bruises and perhaps a longing for the “good old days” of personal interaction and guidance from beloved professors. As a wise old professor of mine once observed, “when something has to give, then something has to give”. It’s like a law of physics at work here, and what has to give and give soon is the insanity of the status quo. Here comes the revolution.
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