Do Today's College Students Have it Harder Than Previous Generations?

For a lot of college students, especially students right out of high school, the knowledge and opportunities that one becomes aware of through the magic of higher education can boggle the mind, making someone think that the world is their oyster. To me, this has been a part of American history, the dream of bettering ones life and doing positive things for the community through becoming educated. This dream still exists in the mind, but as many students are finding out as they enter the professional sector following college, the road to the Promised Land is much longer and harder than it once was.

One would think that the march of progress would make things easier for future generations, not harder. It seems, however, that life has grown harder and more expensive for many of America's youth. Despite the immense power and wealth of this country, most of it is not trickling down to our educational system which should be cherished as the most important part of society. Tuition costs have increased, along with the price of text books. Many of my former community college classmates recall purchasing text books with photocopied pages and later finding we could not sell them back at 20%.

Ironically, what is happening is that the snow covered path that my parents and grandparents had to trek through to get to school every morning is now actually getting longer and colder with each generation.

It has been a tradition for older generations to criticize younger generations for being lazy or thinking that they are owed something. This has always been the case, and it's probably not fair to think that any one generation was lazier than the other. Problem is, the current crop of college aged kids seem to be hearing that despite having to sometimes work more than one job while going to school full time knowing that a bachelor's degree is just a hurdle they have to jump over in order to get into graduate school so they can work in the area of their choosing.

In her book, Generation Debt: Why Now Is The Worst Time to Be Young, 25-year-old Yale Graduate Anya Kamenetz writes about how she worked her way through college on scholarships, grants and three jobs. She laments about how college costs and debts have soared but are not matched by job security or commensurate salaries. She blames this on college becoming an 85 billion dollar loan industry that puts too much money into competing for students rather than raising the quality of instruction.

Although Kamenetz paints a bleak picture, many students are much more fortunate. The amount of financial aid is increasing and things may take a turn for the better because of a shifting of politics. Also, in-state students at colleges can save enormous sums of money vs. going out of state, and with the rigorous work study and internship programs available, a bachelors degree can be enough to start a career if you take advantage of the opportunities to get experience. Also, when you look at the statistics that claim you can make roughly $200,000 - $400,000 more a year in your life time with a degree vs. someone without a degree, even $40,000 or $50,000 in debt is a small number when you look at the big picture.

Back in the early 80s, my father told me that if someone had a bachelor's degree in just about any discipline at all, that student could have gotten an excellent job in computer science or some form of data processing. An employer would be more than happy to train any educated person. My father, a math major who earned his degree in the 60's, never had a problem going from math teacher to Systems Administrator in the corporate world. Nowadays, computer science majors can face long unemployment lines because of tough competition not just with American employees, but foreign contract workers who are able to perform the duties for a much smaller price.

Unlike the college graduate of my father's generation who could grab his degree and take the world by storm, that same graduate has a long road ahead of him. Not only are more people going to college and getting a bachelor's degree, they are going to finer schools because of advances in financial aid. With more aid available, the competition for scholarships to get into college has gone way up. Now, even a valedictorian is no longer guaranteed a full scholarship.

Although financial aid opportunities have increased, so has the debt. And with a lot of students having to set their sights on graduate school not as a way to augment their education, but as a way to put themselves in a position to get the entry level job they want, a long period of enduring debt sometimes looms at the end of the rainbow for some students, basically placing them into a system of servitude.

So, how could this affect the world in general? Well, it's an ambiguous question and the affects would be very hard to quantify until a much later time.

One of the immediate issues is the pay for entry level jobs. As the demand for more education has gone up, the starting pay for entry level jobs has gone down, especially if you figure in inflation and the cost of living increases. We're actually making less money today for our first job than we did 20 years ago when we factor in the declining value of the dollar, Also, many college graduates I know are having to return to their pre college service jobs saddled with $30,000, or $40,000.

Colleges know that a bachelor's degree isn't a luxury anymore. It's something all kids need if they're going to have a chance for a good future. So tuitions, especially for private schools, are now through the roof.

This causes things to snowball with the possibility of future generations having less disposable income, so consumerism declines, businesses make less money, and more people become unemployed.

Hopefully, this problem will be an issue that politicians latch on to and voters consider more seriously. And rather than get to a point were a PhD becomes a prerequisite, maybe the question should be how can we fix the problem so hard working students who pursue education beyond high school can have the opportunities that generations past have had, or at the vary least, make the costs more reasonable in comparison in terms of starting salaries and cost of living.