PORTLAND, Maine — Katherine Hulit graduated from the University of Southern Maine in May with a degree in philosophy and women and gender studies and $19,564 in student loan debt. Hulit, 28, said she has no idea when she will be able to fully pay off what she owes for her education.
And Hulit isn’t alone. In 2010, 67 percent of graduating American college students had some student loan debt. In April of 2012, American student loan debt topped $1 trillion.
But despite the anxiety of beginning her post-college life with hefty debt, Hulit, considers herself lucky.
“Twenty thousand dollars is a lot, but most of my friends are at least $30,000 or $40,000 in debt,” she said.
Hulit’s debt is nothing to take lightly, but she may have cause to count herself relatively lucky. In 2011, USM graduates held an average debt of $38,899, the second-highest average student loan debt in Maine, a state whose 2011 college graduates held the dubious honor of having some of the highest average debt in the country. At $29,983 per graduate, Maine’s average is second only to New Hampshire.
The average amounts of student loan debt refer only to students whose loans came from not-for-profit institutions. According to a report published by the The Project on Student Debt, based out of Washington, D.C., and Oakland, Calif., too few for-profit institutions report the information necessary to compile accurate data or average debt for students and graduates of those institutions.
Hannah Cyrus, 22, of Orono graduated from Bowdoin College with an English degree. Cyrus owes $15,000, along with some interest that has accrued since she began borrowing. Including tuition, fees and room and board, Bowdoin costs about $58,198 per year.
Despite the fact Cyrus went to an elite, private liberal arts college, her relatively low amount of debt is close to the average — $18,229 in 2010 — of Bowdoin graduates, whereas Hulit’s debt from USM is well below that of her average classmates. This points to an interesting trend, at least in Maine, students often graduate from more expensive private schools with lower debt than their peers at public state schools.
“I think it’s really unfair that people who go to public universities are in any amount of debt,” said Cyrus. “The fact that a lot of people who went to public schools are in more debt than I am just seems really unacceptable to me.”
According to Lauren Asher, president of the Oakland, Calif.-based Institute for College Access and Success, students who are deciding on a school should look not just at the “sticker price” of a given institution, but also the net price, which includes tuition, fees, books, transportation and the cost of room and board on campus or off.
“Issues of aid eligibility, how much aid you qualify for at the federal level, what kind of students schools are trying to recruit — all those things affect what you would personally end up having to borrow, earn or save to afford that school,” Asher said. “So net price is really what consumers need to be able to compare to be able to tell if one school will end up costing more than another.”
Asher said consumer knowledge can be helpful in ensuring students borrow as little as possible, and with the lowest interest rates. According to Cyrus, learning from her older sister’s experiences with student loans helped her make decisions about how much and which loans to seek.
“My sister helped me a lot in the decision process, like she’d tell me if a school was giving good financial aid,” said Cyrus, who now lives with her sister outside of Boston and is working at a publishing company through December.
Hulit and Cyrus are among the majority of Maine college graduates who hold loan debt. With 68 percent of college students in Maine graduating with student loan debt in 2011, the state again tops the charts with the seventh-highest proportion of indebted graduates.
Maine’s levels of student loan debt may be higher than average, but a surge in the amount of student loan debt has been a national trend over the last decade. Between 2000 and 2011, the amount of federal financial aid, in the form of both loans and grants, leapt from $64 billion to $169 billion, or a 164 percent increase over 10 years.
According to a September 2012 report published by the National Association of Financial Aid Administrators, a trade group, 72 percent of all financial aid that students received in the 2010-2011 school year, $235 billion in total, came under Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965.
Financial aid packages at colleges generally are made up of a combination of grants — both federal and disbursed by the student’s school — and student loans. The most common federal grant is the the Pell Grant, given to low-income students, which provided $34.8 billion in the 2010-2011 school year; the Federal Work-Study Program provides funds for student jobs on campus. Institutions generally must contribute 25 percent of the wages paid to students.
Then there are the loans, the names of which may be all too familiar in the minds of students, graduates and parents who have helped their children navigate the financial aid process. There are the low-interest Federal Perkins Loans, which provided $970,000 million between 2010 and 2011. Perkins Loans are subsidized by the federal government, meaning borrowers do not accrue interest on the loans until after graduation. The Direct Stafford Loan, disbursed by the federal government, is another low-interest funding source which is offered to students both subsidized and unsubsidized. Together, subsidized and unsubsidized Stafford Loans provided $85.8 billion to borrowers between 2010 and 2011.
If federal loans don’t cover the cost of tuition, fees, room and board, students have the option of taking out private loans, which often have much higher interest rates than federal loans and offer the borrowers fewer options and less flexibility for paying back the loan. TheProject on Student Debt, which issues reports compiling and analyzing data on student loan debt, called private loans “one of the riskiest ways to pay for college.”
“We don’t really consider these to be financial aid,” said Asher, whose organization oversees the Project on Student Debt. “If you use a credit card to pay for school, would that be considered financial aid?”
Annie Monroe, 22, of Orono is another young Mainer who will soon be in debt. Monroe will graduate in December from the University of Maine with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in studio arts and a little more than $18,000 in debt, about $11,000 less than the average UMaine debt of $29,143.
Monroe, who is living in Portland before returning to Orono in the fall, said she worries about paying back her loans on top of living expenses once she has graduated.
“In my field, I need to live somewhere like Portland, somewhere with an urban atmosphere, because that’s where there’s art communities,” she said. “But then it’s more expensive to live there. And an extra $200 a month; I can’t even imagine that.”
High levels of student loan debt would be a strain on individuals under any circumstance, but in a struggling economy plagued by sluggish job growth, it becomes just one more hurdle graduates must leap as they start their lives and careers following college. As the economy continues to stumble its way out of the recession, progress may appear slow to young adults of the millennial generation, dubbed “Generation Screwed” in a recent Daily Beast article.
“Student debt is just one side of the equation where there’s been very high unemployment and underemployment of people just getting out of college,” said Michael Hillard, an economics professor at USM. Hillard said the ability to quickly find a well-paying job in a graduate’s field is less attainable than just eight or 10 years ago, making it more difficult for people to pay off their increasingly high student loan debt.
The national unemployment rate in July hovered at 8.3 percent, down from its high point at 10.2 percent in October 2009. For 18- to 29-year-olds, however, the unemployment rate was at 12.7 percent.
“The real heart of the matter is people do not have full-time, meaningful jobs in career paths of their choice that allow them to pay back their loans,” said Paul T. Conway, president of Generation Opportunity, an advocacy group working to organize young people around issues of employment and economic growth.
“This is a highly motivated generation, and we don’t think people have given up looking for work so much as we firmly believe people are looking very diligently and just not finding economic opportunities,” he said.
Graduates generally have a six-month grace period before they must begin paying back federal student loans, and payment options allow graduates to stop repaying their debt temporarily if they aren’t working or aren’t making enough money. But you can’t defer payment forever, and high unemployment levels do not bode well for recent college graduates.
Hulit, who lives in Portland, has not yet found a full-time job and said she worries about being able to make payments on her loans, which already have accrued $410 in interest since she first began borrowing.
“Basically my plan right now is to take whatever job I can get,” Hulit said.
She currently has a temporary data entry job, but she said it will only last two or three weeks, after which her job search will continue. Hulit said she has applied for 10-15 positions since finishing school.
“I’m getting very discouraged,” she said. “It’s very frustrating that the only jobs available seem to be jobs I had prior to my graduation.”
Estimated annual costs of selected Maine colleges
University of Maine:
Out of state: $39,866
In state: $23,006
University of Southern Maine:
Out of state: $31,756
In state: $19,396
University of Maine-Farmington:
Out of state: $26,679
In state: $17,591
University of Maine-Fort Kent:
Out of state: $26,585
In state: $16,625
University of Maine-Presque Isle:
Out of state: $25,098
In state: $15,158
University of Maine-Machias:
Out of state: $27,200
In state: $15,380
University of Maine-Augusta:
Out of state: $16,688
In state: $7,448
Commuter school
Bowdoin College:
$58,198
Colby College:
$57,300
Bates College:
$57,350
Husson University:
$24,400
University of New England:
$44,370
The few people I’ve talked to say their kids owe on average 40,000 to 65,000 in debt.And they went to Maine schools……..My own son owe’s 57,000 for a 4 year degree…….Payments are 900/month…….A college degree is not what it is cracked up to be……………
“A college degree is not what it is cracked up to be . . . ”
So true. If I were finishing high school today, college is the last thing I’d be considering. Imagine that poor girl who majored in women and gender studies. What chance does she have?
I know one thing that has changed over the last twenty years, and that is the percentage of bar and restaurant wait staff with college degrees. And, companies are able to require college degrees for barely more than entry level positions. They are getting a lot of educated bang for the buck right now. Trouble is, those without a college education, who are still smart and hard working, are left out in the cold. But, when (if?) the economy finally turns around, there will be a wealth of eager, work-experienced talent to fill the payrolls and entry level or blue collar positions will once again become available to those without degrees. That is my optimistic theory, anyway.
I’m thinking of skilled workers, like machinists with the intelligence, skills, and training to use computer-control systems. Those jobs require good math and mechanical skills and vocational schooling combined with on-the-job training, but not a college degree. Those guys get jobs. If I were a youngster today, I’d be looking at opportunities like that, not college.
Except for superior students who have well defined education and career plans, say in STEM subjects or leading to a professional degree (i.e., law or medicine), college doesn’t make much sense anymore given the enormous expense and limited opportunities after graduation. It’s not like when I was young years ago, when a student could coast along, get a degree – any degree – and then a fairly good job. No student debt either!
I totally agree, 100%. I have told my sons that they can live a very good life with a technical degree. A machinist can earn a great wage, have fulfilling work actually producing something beneficial, and not have to take their work home with them. Low stress. Most importantly, their training will lead to work that is actually related to it.
One thing no one ever told me that I wished they did is that you shouldn’t go after a masters until your well into your career and it’s only going to help you in the career you’re already in. Many employers will pay for a talented employee to get a masters within their field as a benefit to keep them with their company. Don’t ever lose a job and decide that’s a good time to go back for a masters thinking you’ll get another good job when you come out. It doesn’t work that way. If you’re looking for work after a masters, with a hole in your resume, you’re seen as too old, overeducated and unable to buckle down and do actual work work. Why would anyone hire you when they can hire a new grad and pay them less and train them the way they want. Don’t do it…
When the baby boomers stop working and the jobs do not go over seas………… That is when doors will open.
I think it is sad companies do not have faith in the American worker, when they bring home the most gold in the Olympics.
The most talented hard working country is left in the dust.
As a priest once said, Jesus’ family or childhood friends did not have faith in him either, though he was grown up. They could not believe he would or did turn into the man he became.
Sometimes one needs to get out of their usual or old circle for people to believe in them.
Should we get out of our country? I think that is extreme and too any people to move.
I don’t think it has anything to do with faith in the American worker, but with the economics of employing them. Jobs have gone overseas because that is the cheapest place to get the work done, and the job of CFO’s is to produce in the most cost-effective manner possible. I am sure that if American companies could employ American workers at equal cost, that is what they would choose. It is all about cost.
Agree, my company hires a firm in Siberia to do all their web work for a tenth of what they’d pay a firm here. They’re top notch developers too.
I hope incoming freshmen don’t waste their money studying fields of academia that won’t lead to a career. Years ago companies would hire college graduates and train them for positions they didn’t study for. Just having a degree was your ticket to a good job. It’s not that way any more.
No the job market is good, the degrees are appreciated by employers to be considered, the problem is these grads will be looked down upon…just ask our governor.
Yeah, thanks to the Democrats.
i defaulted on my student loan
student loan collectors= GESTAPO
they took every tax refund
they call your employer and they took 15% out of every paycheck…even when i was working part time ,$110 a week between full time jobs …they took $16 out
they wreck your credit
many employers will not hire you
after 20 years ,the pigs finally got their money back…i am working a crap job at $12 an hour
..
how much money did the good old USA forgive GM? the banks?
Not very good planning on your part……………
and GM’s planning? the banks planning? good or bad, they win either way
Pitbull got his education as he contracted to do with the upfront loan. What’s he complaining about? Oh.. did his university advisors not tell him that he must fullfill the deal and pay the money back after he graduated?
it s paid back
soooo,why is it the usa gave qudillio-blab,blab,blab-millions of dollars to GM and the banks? when they did NOT fulfill their obligations and meet their contracts?
o yea, thats right to. if GM and the banks did not get their money, they threaten to shut down the whole US economy and send the country into the prehistoric days
Pitbull.. Your best course of action is to sue the college that you went to for Breach of Contract .. because obviously from your responses – that college did not even to begin to complete their obligation to educate you.
youse ever seen a woodsmith come out after pettin a snake?
Yeah, don’t bother even responding to the comment. Just throw out some personal attacks. Should be good enough.
Actually, I’d say they may have been responsible for a few setbacks in regards to Pitbull’s education………..Just sayin.
What, No railing against MMA??
You must be feeling under the weather.
Stay tuned hopper.. I’m in the process of uncovering why Richard Ericson, MMA’s current Vice President of Finance and Governmental affairs, committed suicide with his gun a few weeks ago. This was shortly after his wife was fired from the same MMA for malfeasance. Waiting for the police investigation report. No, you won’t read it here in the BDN because the owner of the BDN is on MMA’s board of trustees.
Boo hoo. Time to take some personal responsibility folks. What do you expect when you earn a degree in fields like philosophy, women’s studies, or fine arts? In addition, the article doesn’t address students financing comfort needs like clothing, vehicles, beer, etc. I am a graduate with two degrees who completed school without any student loan debt – because I worked 20 -40 hours per week in addition to completing my coursework. Time to stop blaming others for your bad decisions!
A story for the masses:
In the early 1970’s the government told farmers “Plant fencepost to fencepost, we’ll guarentee the price.” So the farmers took out their yearly loans (as they always had) and went to work, thinking that the government meant what it said. In 1974 there was a fuel shortage (some say engineered by government and big-oil) and the price of fuel for farmers doubled, then tripled.
The government reneged on its promise (to guarentee crop prices) and many farmers went belly-up lost their family farms, and were forced into bankrupcy. Corporations bought up the family farms at fire-sale prices, and now the “family farmer” (once the backbone of this Nation) is an endangered specises.
If you don’t get how this story relates to Student loans in the current economy, you have not been paying attention.
I have no student loans, and no family members have student loans.
Thank society for brainwashing all these kids into thinking they can’t make anything out of their life without going to college for 4 years. I make nearly 50,000 per year and I have zero college credits.
My daughter has 8 years of college and a billion college credits. She makes $140,000.00 a year or about 3 times what you do. That’s about $3,600.000 more she’ll make than you over both of your lifetimes. I agree-not everyone needs to go to college to do well in life. However-some of those “brainwashed” people might just save your life someday, or engineer the bridge you drive over, or design the plane you fly in with their college credits. And by the way if you’re ever in surgery-thank God that the Doctor cutting you has college credits.
Good points, but the examples you give are professionals, engineers and doctors, who used their studies wisely and didn’t fritter away their time and money in soft/worthless things like womens and gender studies.
Our Maine youth, put into debt by our colleges, put into debt by our hospitals, put into debt to buy a auto, they are trying to live, low wages, high rents, DAMIT, MAINE AND AMERICA, we can do better, what to hell, forty years ago it was not like this, what to hell are we doing. And do not tell me it’s forty years of DEM leadership in Maine, we have had two Republican Senators for Gawd only knows how long, they do not seem to want to address these problems of the State, they do know they represent Maine, I hope.
I think everyone should go to college and get a degree and then spend six months
as a bartender and six months as a cabdriver. Then they would really be educated.
YOU are probably absolutely right, I might add a Greyhound Bus trip to Vegas and back, just for finishing school.
There are some very smart and knowledgable people out there, I am humbled often on here, but I do have a question, does anyone here have any info on whether Canada, Russia, Sweden, Brazil, maybe a couple more countries, Ireland, or Aussieland , Japan, China, do they saddle their youth with these student load debts as we do in the US??
Are you looking to relocate?
Not hardly, just interested if some of these Countries saddle their youth with College Debt, or is this unique to the US.
Seems to me that these youth have saddled themselves with debt.
I don’t know about these other people, but the government didn’t saddle me with any student loan debt.
No me neither, but I am trying to get a picture of is the US now, this student load problem is growing, and I would like to know more about it, like who’s fault is this, are parents getting too poor to pay, are kids being duped into this, are colleges doing all they can to spare debt, or encouraging it??
I think that the easy availability of credit for student loans resulted in a larger pool of money for tuition and expenses, thereby allowing colleges to raise tuition. It was one of the factors that drove up the cost of a college education. So, to answer your question, I believe that colleges have encouraged debt.
As someone with a large amount of student loan debt but who likes to look at things honestly I can say the debt is my fault. I took it out, I signed on the dotted line so it’s my responsibility and no one else’s.
That being said I think it seems like we’ve heard this story before with the housing market/bubble that hurt the country in 2007/08. So much credit was available to so many people and everyone wanted to take advantage of it. I think the high schools and guidance departments have to take some responsibility as well. I agree with the above poster out getting degrees from tech schools and certifications in fields that are needed. But when I was in school those weren’t pushed and in fact it seemed like they did what they could to keep you away from tech schools and heading to University’s. That’s just my opinion of course.
My degree is in business and I graduated in 2007. The next year the market flopped and I found myself competing against people with many years of experience for $12 hour jobs. One thing I have to give credit to many employers in Maine, they have a tendency to hire experience over education which in my opinion is smart business. It hurts those of us that attempting to find work but I understand their point of view. However, there seems to be a large amount of people who graduate with a degree in a certain field and are unwilling to do dirty work to get by. I went into landscaping. It’s not glamorous but I’ve found how much I enjoy it. Keeping yourself in the job field one way or another is the best way to further your career and sure as heck beats sitting at home living off a state check (and I’ve had to do that as well looking for work). My concern is when this does turn around, their will be a fresh crop of college grads willing to work for next to nothing and my generation of grads will still be on the outside looking in. I guess we’ll see what happens…
Get into sales-the highest paying job in the world.
You probably went to school when Hillary was in office. We were the lucky ones then. I benefited greatly when Hillary was running the show.
You test into college in Europe and Canada and the cost is a fraction of our college costs.
Example. McGill (Montreal). Full cost engineering next year for Quebec kids accepted, tuition and fees $4200, room and board (about ) $80000, total cost $12000 It’s a fantastic college, highly rated around the globe. There were student riots in England when they talked of raising costs to $5000 last year.
Maine $23000 Poor Maine kids.
Are there any specific programs that the US Government offers to work off this student load debt such as Peace Corp, Military Service, are there any avenues for relief??
Teach for America only pays $10k back, and for where they’ll send you, you’ll get that robbed out of your house and wallet your first couple weeks you move into the ghetto. Sometimes, though, they will pay for you to get your masters in education. Yeah… Then you can get out of your masters and find out you still have to fight like a dog for low paying job in the middle of nowhere.
The military has the GI Bill that you pay $100 a month for 1 year and that generates 36K in dollars for tuition. BUT if you’re smart, you’ll also take advantage of the tuition assistance program while you are in the service and get a large chunk of your credits that way. Basically they pay your tuition and as long as you get a certain grade (not sure what it is anymore) you don’t pay any of it back. They also will allow you to use that GI Bill money for your spouse or children.
The liberal solution was to increase student aid to make college more “affordable”. As a result the capitalist pigs in sheep’s clothing in the ivory towers, who rail against the evil free market, responded by increasing tuition to what the market would bear -INCLUDING the student loans. If you’re looking for someone to blame, blame the government and the colleges. They’ve taken you all for a ride. As usual the government solution only succeeded in exacerbating the problem while connected government insiders and the bureaucrats walked away with pockets full of cash.
State universities used to be subsidized heavily by state taxpayers, those subsidies have been cut by more than 50% and the kids pick up the difference. In the seventies, I paid$1200 for a year of tuition at UMaine and with extra credit hours as a science major. Rest assured it cost a lot more than that to pay for all of that infrastructure and educational instruction expense.
As our state gets poorer, our kids pay more and get that much poorer. Smart people (think LePage) send their kids to out-of-state institutions by establishing “residency” that support their schools better. Smarter kids yet get into heavily endowed colleges like Bowdoin that pick up most of the cost.
In Massachusetts, kids don’t pay tuition at state universities, just books, living expenses and student fees. A richer state.
I don’t blame govt or colleges, I blame our state’s plight as a poor state.
The only safe bet for kids right now are allied health fields (pharmacy, PT, OT, nursing, PA, MDs, DMDs, etcc) and engineering. Any other program, even law school, is a crap shoot at this time, especially in Maine.
Without the government student loans the colleges would not have been able to raise tuition at twice the rate of inflation. They would have run out of customers. The free market would have kept prices down. Instead the government quest to make college more affordable did just the opposite.
Unintended consequences seem to follow government solutions. Gee, I wonder if there’ll be any from the Affordable Care Act.
What’s even sadder is once you get licensed and all the rest of it to work in allied health, there’s only per diam or part-time work with no benefits. There’s no advancement either because a license only lets you do one thing. You can’t be an x-ray tech and in a few years climb the ladder to radiologist. The tech training schools are also pumping out allied health workers like no tomorrow and there’s not enough work in that field either. Wages are low because employers can pick and choose. I feel sorry for girls I hear about who are nineteen years old thinking they want to go into nursing or ultrasound for the rest of their lives. A couple of years in and they’ll see its nothing but a backbreaking, thankless go nowhere job, and they’ll have to go back to school if they want a good job someday. The trouble then will be that none of their tech courses will transfer, they’ll have to start all the way back at the beginning. But at least they can empty bed pans while they’re studying their history and math at night by the midnight oil.
Come south! There is a shortage of those types of trained individuals. And if your a nurse, you can work 36 hours (Friday, Saturday & Sunday) and get paid for a 40 hour week…plus full benefits of being a full time employee!
Are you sure about free tuition in Mass?
Apparently Maine Maritime Academy doesn’t fit the mold for this article as it was left completely off of the list. Still an awesome school with jobs on the other side. I just graduated, I have about $48k in debt and signed on for $71k salary my first job out of the gate…and I work six months a year. Just thought it should be mentioned.
My son will graduate this year from MMA with about $20k of debt and anticipates about the same starting salary and work schedule. He’ll be out of debt the first year he’s out of school!
Then you must know why the MMA’s VP of finance committed suicide a few weeks ago.
Somehow, there is some fitting justice in this news. Young people, enjoy your Obama mania.
Or not.
“Katherine Hulit graduated from the University of Southern Maine in May
with a degree in philosophy and women and gender studies and $19,564 in
student loan debt. Hulit, 28,”
Now, why would someone who graduated from college 10 years after high school have any debt? What did she do for those 10 years since a college degree takes less than 1/2 of that? Couldn’t she have, say, worked and earned the money for tuition and fees? And if someone is so dense to major in underwater basketweaving then they deserve not to be able to find a job in this economy. If it has “studies” in the title then it isn’t worth the paper it is printed on.
We have done a great job of getting our kids to go to college. We have not done so great a job showing them how to pay for it.
I graduated in 1989 with a degree in Political Science and all that qualified me for was waitressing and bartending. I had to go back to school to get specialized training to get a job as a Paralegal. I can’t believe people are still being graduated with degrees that will not get them a career. It is demoralizing to start life out with so much debt and end up working a job that you could have gotten without the degree. In my case, I was told by many people that all I had to do was graduate with a degree and I would be all set. I think that myth endures…
I agree! I graduated from UMaine with a degree in Communications and have never worked in a field that needed this type of degree. If it hadn’t been for my entering the service, I probably would have still been working retail and waiting tables. What I learned in the service has given me a great career in construction. I now am a certified healthcare construction manager and work in hospitals doing the clinical renovations of surgical units, cancer units etc. Thankfully I was able to pay off all my student loans while I was in the military. I can’t imagine the kids that are graduating these days with all that debt and no jobs in their chosen field!
Time for an ‘Occupy’ bridge sit-down march against Big Liberal College Business.
I am indignant about those college profits and payrolls.
Imagine the greed of those inculcating profs. feathering their retirement nests.
You might go a step further and ask how much do they pay the football and hockey coaches…many times it’s more than a tenured professor that has been on staff for 20 plus years. How much does the school put out in sports scholarships and where does that money come from?How much is spent on things that have absolutely nothing to do with the quality of life or education for the students that attend? And where does all that money come from?
Sorry, but if you get a degree in “women and gender studies”… or a liberal arts degree… then I dont feel sorry for you and your debt. Get a degree in a field that’s going to produce a good job when you graduate…. you know full well going into college what your options are with a liberal arts degree upon graduation… they are limited… to say the least. If that’s your passion… then so be it and I applaud you for doing something you love. Though you don’t have a leg to stand on complaining because you are now a waitress paying back student loans.
Too bad they didn’t list Maine Maritime Academy. The one institution in Maine who’s graduates often have jobs before graduation. There are 4 of us on my ship, and I just hired a recent grad.
People will pay someone major league money for several reasons: (1) they can’t do the job themselves, (2) they don’t want to do the job, (3) there is a short supply of those that can do the job or they don’t have the time to do the job. MMA is a respected school with grads that have hands on skills good anywhere in the world. Some of these people whining should have chosen a school that taught something valuable instead of attending a top party school, Good luck aboard ship. I’m jealous.
MMA grad here as well.
Most of us forget that prior to the industrial revolution people had specific skills. When folks came off the farm and into the cities to work in factories many lost valuable skills. Today young people really don’t know much about anything.For centuries young people worked as apprentices -obtaining hundred of different NEEDED trades. Go to an Amish farm and see what a 14 year boy knows-it’s astounding!
If the BDN wanted to ‘help’ instead of whine and commiserate; they’d publish a list of the top twenty places in the world where Maine college graduates can find a job……Call it a challenge to place all those single moms with counseling degrees and others with unemployability in Maine for the jobs now being listed.
Start with QUEBEC city, Vancouver, the Alberta oil fields; then go down to Brazil and S. America; and over to S.E. Asia….plenty of expanding economies.
Provide a road-map to learning their language and culture that features ex-pat colonies and even bars and other hangouts.
Better yet hang out at the bus station and ask youth where they are going to look for work and why.
Provide historical background and perhaps photos of San Francisco houses built by Maine Carpenters, or the stories by Maine women who went West and because of their character, traditional values and religious beliefs held families together.
Your story template is just a recipe for failure for unemployable youth. CHANGE IT.
One thing I don’t understand is why colleges start their school year so early. When I was in school we didn’t have to go back until mid September. Especially here in Maine most resorts are busy until about Labor Day and yet kids have been returning to school as early as mid August. A lot of farm work peaks in August too. It seems as though kids could make more money if they were off from say Memorial Day until after Labor Day.
Bangor has many downtown bars to work at. You can work along side of the high school dropouts.
There are some truly outstanding posts on this thread!
Many of them point out the folly of taking out huge loans to attend college to get a degree in a “basket weaving” major that will give no marketable skills for the future after graduation.
It would seem that “career planning 101” would dictate that you work for an education that will allow you to support yourself in the field you have chosen. Why haven’t so many bright young minds not figured that out before they graduate from high school?
Today there are still many who are majoring in courses of study such as “political science.” The sad part of this is that we, the taxpayers, are subsidizing their studies (in addition to their student loans) by continuing to fund the many degree courses that do not prepare them to make a meaningful contribution to society. Some high-placed faculty and administrators of the UM System say they must educate students to be “critical thinkers” as if a degree in Engineering, Medicine, Law or STEM subjects in general does not require “critical thinking!” This is nothing more than a condescending jab at the theory that a degree should give you something of value to a future employer. Basically, they feel that they are preparing students to become university faculty and continue their myopic view of what is valuable in an education.
The only people who can afford a liberal arts degree today are the people who plan to marry wealth or live off the wealth of their parents and tell the rest of us what we need to do to support them in their political positions. The last thing we as a country should do is bail out those who have unwisely loaded themselves down with debt. That will only encourage the universities to continue the practice of offering non-marketable degrees. Let the bubble burst! Let the defaults multiply until the universities feel the pain and they have no choice but to cut the basket weaving courses and focus on useful courses of study!