Should College Loans Be Forgiven? This Dinosaur Says No!

There are a lot of requests coming out of Occupy Wall Street. One of them puzzles me, and I wonder if I am the only one that is confused. People want their college loans paid for. They do not seem to feel embarrassed or ashamed by asking the government (tax payers) to pick up these debts.

When I was young, jobs were available. I started out in low paying jobs and worked my way up. I had no college degree; that was my choice. I had rent and a car payment to make, and remember spending two weeks in my car until I found a part time job to pay for a room. I was a figure salon instructor during the day and a telephone operator in a hotel, second shift. My husband spent a year at lineman's school to be a power lineman. There were many kids that did not go to college back then. They just started their working and tax paying careers right out of high school.

Over the last 20 years, people have been pushed into thinking that they must have a college degree. This totally ignores accomplishments by people like Steve Jobs. How many small business owners do not have a college degree? As more kids began to go to college, the colleges started hiking their tuitions. Who's responsibility is it that college loans are so high? Is it wall street, the colleges or the students fault? What useless courses did these kids take that ran the bill up further?

Students knew ahead of time that college was costing them x amount of money a year. They could have been holding down part time jobs or skipping a year and working, in order to keep their loan paid down. Students could have opted to go to junior colleges or less expensive colleges.

Once out, students seem to have the idea that the perfect job is going to land in their lap as soon as they graduate. In the real world, those jobs are far and few between. The bottom line is, you have to work to make a living, no matter what. Flip a burger, clean a house, and keep searching for a job you are trained for. Why sit on the couch or protest in the street, unless someone is putting money in your pocket to do so?

Maybe the problem is that kids are not taught personal pride and responsibility. Nowhere does the constitution say that your college loan must be paid for by the government. The pursuit of happiness means that you have the opportunity to succeed, not a guarantee that you will.

The country and the world are in upheaval. You think if you make noise and cause havoc you can get your way. Good luck with that, you are adults now, take a shot at being one.