Why is there a student debt market? Education should be free, we paid for it.

Student debt -June/ 2010: $829,785,000,000

As the move to privatize higher education heats up by making the coast of public universities prohibitive, the for-profit schools are raking in the dough. But as Business Week points out in its latest issue, an education can ruin your life.*

A private education at a school like Harvard or Yale might produce good results. But these are institutions for the ruling class of society. When it comes to education for the working class, the free market, for –profit model doesn’t do too well, for the student that is, the investors and CEO of the company do very well indeed.

In a previous blog we covered some of the issues surrounding for-profit schools, like a graduation rate of 22% for first-time full-time candidates compared to 55% for state colleges. With the cost of public universities becoming prohibitive, working class, the poor and minority communities, are forced to these for-profit institutions. The for-profits now enroll one in eight US students. But for working class folks these institutions can be the kiss of death.

A BA at a For-Profit will cost dearly with the median debt at these schools being $31,190 compared to $17,040 at private non-profit schools and $7960 at public colleges BW writes. Because the for-profits “profit” primarily from lower income students, which is an increasingly higher proportion of all students given the economic crisis and declining living standards, these colleges account for close to 50% of all federal defaults. The clients tend to be. “lower income students, minorities, immigrants and working adults” says BW.

The experience can be devastating. Business Week describes one victim, Ronnie Franklin who had to live in a homeless shelter for a year as he was so “strapped for money”. This is a nice environment for learning isn’t it?  He now works as a house painter for $12 an hour and wants to go to a community college but he defaulted on the for-profit school debt he can’t get loans.

The experience left him worse off, “I got an outstanding student loan, I got no job, and I’m further and further in debt. It’s basically crippling me from doing a lot things to improve my living condition.”, he told BW.

The alternative will be a stint in the military. There are a lot of openings there as the small percentage of Americans, the economic draftees who are sent out to make the world safe for US corporations, are exhausted after having to serve repeated tours.

There is a more productive alternative:

* No to privatization: Private sector out of our schools
* Full Federal Funding for Schools
* End property tax-based school funding
* Repeal NCLB
* No to Merit Pay for Teachers
* Unionize all Schools, hire one million teachers
* Class size of 15
* Tax the rich, end the wars and increase education budget
* Control of education and curriculum by those that receive it, students, parents and teachers

* For-Profit College Grads Also Earn a Life of Debt. Business Week Jan 10-16 2011