Friday, September 07, 2012
Specious Reasoning
There comes a time when justification falls into the realm of specious reasoning -- such as calling the student loan debt load "good debt." When a former college student waiting tables is $100,000 or more in the hole, there is no such thing as positive debt, and the fact that lifetime earnings exceed those of high school students means little. But there are plenty of former students who carry more than $100,000 on the ledger, especially medical students. How will they ever become members of the middle class who buy homes, raise families and send children to college? Everyone acknowledges the student debt problem now that it has passed a trillion dollars, but there doesn't seem to be much original thinking about what to do. This is, of course, an entrepreneurial opportunity for educators to reinvent learning and some are moving in that direction with online courses and academies. The sad part is that universities and colleges continue to construct new buildings and increase tuition without much thought to the numbering of their days. If they get into trouble for failing to control overhead, it will be their own fault. Meanwhile, students suffer.
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