Or…If You Are Thinking of Taking On 80K in Student Debt for a Music History Degree….Think Harder

Much of the news in October 2011 in America focuses on the Occupy Wall Street protests. Putting on my Official Non-Political Viewing Goggles, I have noticed a persistent theme with many of the protesters. Lots of them are suffering under ginormous loads of college student debt.

Some of them have taken to holding up signs describing their woes, taking pictures with their cell phones and posting them online. The common thread in these pictures is

·         $50,000+ in student debt;

·         A liberal arts degree; and

·          No job

The first thought in my mind when I see these folks protesting in Liberty Plaza is – you’re lost. You’re protesting in the wrong place.

What you really need to do is get the home address of the dean of the university from which you graduated. You need to set up in his or her driveway. Your university is the entity that allowed (encouraged?) you to take out large loans for a degree in a field in which it is likely you will not be able to afford to pay it back comfortably.

For me, these protests have highlighted a problem in American society that has been in the shadows for too long: There is a worrisome partnership between American universities, loan institutions, and naïve young adults.

The university pushes and profits from expensive non-technical degrees, the government backs the loan from the loaning institution, and the naïve college student takes on a huge debt that he or she has no inkling yet what it will take to pay it back.

In my late teens and early 20s, I didn't have a clue what it would mean to have a $300 or $400 monthly payment around my neck.

As far as I can tell, this is the part where the parents need to step in and prevent the student, their child, from making a major life mistake at a very tender age. Very few people at age 20 understand that student loan debt is not dischargable in bankruptcy. In fact, I would wager that most 20 year-olds do not know what ‘not dischargable in bankruptcy’ even means.

Before committing to a major, parents and their college age children need to research what the potential salary is for a given profession, such as at http://www.Salary.com. They also need to keep in mind that you’ll pay somewhere in the area of $100 per month for every $10,000 of student debt. That can be a real back breaker for a music history teacher making $30,000 per year.

If the parents and the student do their homework, they can prevent that 20 year-old from signing up for a world of hurt at a young age.