Piling up the debt
Let’s try to keep things in perspective. Locally, there’s a call to raise university tuition by $505 per year for the next few. Our students took to the streets in protest. Nothing came of it. In the United Kingdom, there’s a call to raise university tuition by $14,000 (once, not for the next few). The students took to the streets in protest AND kicked the limousine chauffeuring Prince Charles and the Missus. Talk about upping the ante!
Actually, if someone had offered (even in jest) to triple my tuition, back when, I’d have wanted to kick a car too. Times were tight, and I’d already maxed out the loan thing. There wasn’t any loose change. In retrospect, I had incentive to get through in the recommended time frame. The programs weren’t called “four year degrees” because you were intended to make it a decade long vocation. That was reserved for grad school.
I did get through, and my debt load was roughly equivalent to one year of salary in my chosen profession. Jump forward to the now generation, where a plausible figure for accumulated debt is roughly equivalent to one year of salary, etc. etc. After the raise in tuition for our local marchers. I won’t address the situation across the pond.
What to do?
I saw a decent cartoon, which compared the “university financing / student debt” question to snow clearance. No matter how you shovel the stuff, somebody ends up being responsible for the chuck to the top of the embankment. Oddly, the most likely candidate is called “a tax paying parent”.
