COMMENTARY: We’re creating a generation of serfs, mired in debt

On Oct. 25, 1415, Henry V of England laid some serious hurt on the French at the Battle of Agincourt at Pas-de-Calais, France. Part of the success of this campaign was due to Henry’s use of the longbow, but part of it also goes to the creative use of military indentures. These legal contracts required all the English captains to provide specified amounts of men, material and time to the king’s cause.

An indenture was a document, written in duplicate and then torn along a jagged line, like little teeth (dents), in the paper. One portion of the contract was in possession of each party and when the required conditions and period of service were fulfilled, the parts reunited, and the debt was considered paid. Many of the people who first came to this country from England came as indentured servants, worked off their debt and became the backbone of the country.

Today we are creating a nation not of indentured servants, who are people with a carefully delineated term of service, but serfs, people hopelessly and forever tied to the land that gives them sustenance. I am talking about the crippling debt our students owe the government for their college education.

This serfdom was not planned but is the result of the insidious and omnipresent law of unintended consequences. I sigh, roll my eyes, and wag a cautionary finger at people who are sure they can “make things better” by a simple solution, but I don’t hold them in contempt. My contempt is reserved for people who choose to capitalize on the error; in fact, they nurture the mistake, growing it in their favor, and work hard to make sure that no one ever finds out that there are rats eating the insulation! In this case, I am talking about the effete dilettantes who make up the American college administration.

Let me try just three examples to prove my point; each of these numbers is adjusted for inflation. They represent averages for tuition, room and board at public colleges.

In 1964 (the year I started college) the yearly cost was $950. This also was the beginning of the guaranteed student loan program. By 1990 that figure was $4,757 (118% the rate of inflation). In 2007 the cost was up to $11,034. That is 173% of the rate of inflation!

Why are these costs now almost doubling the rate of inflation and outstripping the means of middle-class families?

It is because the universities lack any incentive to lower prices or introduce efficiencies. These administrators are insensitive to costs and hypersensitive to prestige.

To quote Richard Vedder, professor of economics at Ohio University and author of Going Broke by Decree: Why College Costs Too Much: “Like health care, prices are rising rapidly for higher education because of the predominant role of third-party payments — federal student loans and grants.”

It’s not the colleges’ debt, it is their students’ debt. The fact is that the universities looked at federal student loan debts and saw only a cash cow they would milk to the last drop. Why should they live within their means? No pain, no problem!

We must not allow our students to be made serfs to the feudal lords of government and academia. First, right the wrong already done. Retroactively, for each year a student has paid on his student loan, 10% of it should be forgiven by the government. That also means that in 10 years all debt would be removed (read indenture, not serfdom).

Next, prevent further abuses by colleges. Public universities have been offering published professors’ low caseloads, high salaries and good parking in exchange for a prestigious name. Heaven forbid these men actually teach. Oh, wait, wasn’t that their job?

These same schools spend shamelessly on sports programs because a splashy sports program attracts the alumni. Evidently no one cheers a great economics program. The trustees get transportation, hotels and good dinners as long as there is a conference at the end of the day. I have seen no evidence that anyone’s education has been improved through this regimen.

Intro classes are being taught by teachers’ assistants instead of the profs themselves. The professors given the best salaries evidently are not there to teach, yet being taught by first-class professors is what the universities are selling. Our students have been caught in a sleazy bait and switch. Yet this is only half the problem. The other half is in making the universities face some serious cost/benefit analysis on the product they produce.

How about looking at their persistence to graduation rate? Their student employment rate after graduation? The number of hours their full professors spend in the classroom doing what they have been hired to do, which is teach?

Let’s look at the number of assistants who are assigned to teach a subject instead of offering personal tutoring for students who need it. Schools that are deficient in these areas should receive fewer government loan allowances.

It is time to make the schools accountable for the product they say they are producing. Discount the loans, discipline the colleges and let our students achieve academic success without crippling debt. It is worth it to keep the faith.

Louise Butler is a retired educator and published author who lives in Edinburg. She writes for our Board of Contributors.