I only recently learned more about the occupy movement and "we are the 99%" slogan. Chalk it up to being too busy working and moving a family between continents to stay on top of the news.
There is an occupy Honolulu camp in town that the police and city council have been forcing out of the park. I looked up more info about all of this.
I can certainly understand the frustration based on my own experiences. I am very pro-education, but in a strictly monetary view it does not make sense to go to grad school. Today people that begin working straight out of college make more over a lifetime than people with higher degrees. With higher degrees you go deeper into debt and spend many years making very little money. People are surprised to learn that as a postdoc (that's with a Ph.D.) at Harvard (that's Ivy League) you may make only $18,000 a year.
This is effectively less when you consider paying off college loans at the same time. And what if you have a family with dependents?
I encouraged a distant cousin of mine to go to college. Instead he went straight into his father's business after high school. He is doing much better financially than I and many people I know who went to college. This makes it hard to encourage other people to go to college.
College tuitions are unreal; it is impossible to work your way through college. (I always had a job while in college--from a janitor mopping floors to landscaping digging ditches to a security guard trying to stay awake all night--but it was never enough to pay for college.) And, your parents incomes are included in your financial calculations whether they help to pay for college or not. Also, graduate schools take advantage of students. There is the assumption you do not have dependents and the low levels of support are justified. You are required to spend thousands of dollars on things you do not need. (Example, I was forced to buy health insurance from a specific company each year in order to register for classes. I already had insurance covering me from my wife's job. Then when it came time to pay up medical bills they refused, even though it was listed as a covered expense in their handbook. So I was forced to pay for something I couldn't afford, didn't need, and gave no benefits.) And you are paid like a company town, on paper you receive money for support, but you never see all that money because it is taken right back out by the university. Also, judges have ruled that grad students are not employees and do not have the same legal protections (for example, can not organize to go on strike and refuse to teach classes).
The irony of the college situation is, we can not save for our children's college because we are paying off our own education. I opened
529 savings accounts many years ago for the kids but have only been able to put in a small amount. It is not like we are not trying to save. I also opened an
IRA over a decade ago to save for retirement. I've barely been able to put in anything beyond the initial $500 to open the account. With some very lucky investments I have grown that to several thousand, but that is still nothing to retire on. (And by the way, my time spent in grad school--where I was not legally an employee, even though I worked and paid taxes--doesn't count for social security benefit calculations.)
Also, it is not like we are spending money freely. Our biggest expense after rent is health insurance (I have always made sure the kids are covered) and college loans. Then we have the utility bills, etc. We keep things turned off and try to use as little water and electricity as possible. We do cost comparisons at the grocery store and buy cheaper bulk food. I have a budget and keep track of every penny of every expense using finance software (
moneydance). We would have gone under long ago if I didn't. We live cheaply. I only buy new clothes if I have to (and we get donated clothes). We have only one vehicle for a five person family. We have never owned a new car. We do not have many basic things like a microwave oven, etc. because we can get by without them. Until only recently, a little over a year ago, I never even had a cell phone (I now have a prepaid plan). My biggest indulgence in the last 10 years is my camera (my computer is a necessity for my job) and one-on-one trips with my family in 2010 (that I planned for years to do before the kids were too old). Despite all that, we are used to living from paycheck to paycheck. Usually with a gap of several days where we simply don't have any money left and are broke. Usually we keep up with rent but right now I am behind (and communicated this with our landlord so there are no surprises). Whenever we do have extra money I use it to pay off as much debt as possible. I hate to complain. I have traveled in other countries and seen what true poverty is like, but I think people in general have a mistaken idea of what my generation and people like me have to put up with financially in the US. And apparently this is more
widespread than I realized.
Also, it is not like I am lazy and not working. I used to work nights, weekends, almost continuously for years in past jobs. V and I have both worked multiple jobs at times. I forced myself to stop working so much because of my health and to spend time with my family. And V and I work very hard teaching the kids to make up for a broken public education system.
I believe in paying my debts and have never planned to declare bankruptcy. However, for people in my situation this wouldn't really change anything. Educational loans are specifically exempt from bankruptcy; even if you are found bankrupt because you can't pay the loans, you still have to pay them. Why then are other people allowed to get out of car loans, house loans, and consumer debt? And companies, that should be allowed to go under if we practiced capitalism, are bailed out? (And trillions are wasted on pointless wars... )
A further difficulty is the higher your education the fewer jobs that are out there, which means you may have to move larger distances to find a job. I had to move out of the US to find a job to continue my career, which also meant I faced fines, based on past support, for leaving the US (even though it was to get a job). People in the military that move to other countries have a support structure that we can not benefit from. (As do many people that work in large companies or work for the government.) This goes all the way down to simple little things like buying a newspaper. In Germany there is a cheaper price for people in the military and then the price I had to pay. I am not trying to put down people in the military, just to point out how people can easily fall through the cracks of support structures that are assumed to be there. (We end up getting charged more to offset the lower prices of other people. And other people I talked to that had lived in Germany seemed to be unaware that I did not have the same advantages as them.) Also, my work in Germany does not count for US retirement, and my work in the US doesn't count for German retirement. So I loose out on retirement savings yet again.
Sorry about the rant. The point is, is this a system we want? Or, should we change things to encourage people to become highly educated, if they choose to do so, and be able to save for their and their children's future, which would benefit all of us in the long run?
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Update: Another irony is that "new" college professors do not make enough to pay off their own college loans. I know of more than one case.
