Student Loans

When I was going to college back in the 1970s, it was sometime before I realized what I really wanted to do.
Well, actually I wanted to be among the idle rich, but that didn’t seem to be a viable option. What I didn’t want to do was come out of school owing a vast debt. So I prolonged my education, took time off to work and save money so I could pay as I went. I’m not sure that I would do it that way again. Actually, I am not sure if I could do so today, even if I wanted to. Education costs more now, and there aren’t as many good paying summer jobs, or jobs at all, for that matter.


But what I do know is that we need a far better educated workforce in this state. You are essentially doomed to poverty if your education stops when you leave high school, unless you marry money or become a major league baseball player. Our society needs to help young people get an education, by any means necessary. That’s especially true for Michigan, where the number of young adults with higher education has fallen below the national average.

Our national income has also slipped below the national average, and there is nothing coincidental about those two facts.

The suspension of the MI-LOAN program may not seem important, but it will have a ripple effect. The hundreds of students who were counting on getting those loans will have to get the money from somewhere. Not many are likely to drop out of school, but a few might. And I am not utterly convinced that MI-LOAN is only an isolated local phenomenon.

The U.S. government is projecting a record $400 billion deficit this year, and a recession would make the deficit even bigger. What that means is that the government will suck up a lot of the money that’s available for borrowing. That leaves only so much to go around.

Our system of funding higher education is convoluted, confusing and often haphazard. Some people know how to work the system, or have parents who do.

Others come up with the short end of the stick.

It seems to me that our state government, in collaboration with the universities, should help identify worthy students and help educate them about all their various financial options, including loans. I think Michigan needs a rigorous supplemental loan program that is based not only on ability to pay, but on likelihood of contribution to society.

And I think we should offer such loans at low interest rates. If loan money is scarce, we ought to give priority to those who seem to have it figured out, who have a clear sense of direction as to what they want to do. We also shouldn’t limit these loans to traditional college students. Higher-end vocational students also should be able to qualify. Whatever the short-term cost to the state would be more than made up by what we got back in the end.