Last Monday, Student Life reported that the cost of attending Washington University as an undergraduate has risen to $40,838. Extrapolating to four years, and (wrongly) accounting for no future increases, the cost of a Washington University degree, then, has risen to $163,335. For those of us whose tuition is not being paid for by members of the Chancellor’s Parents’ Council, our potential debt load also has risen dramatically. This situation is not merely hypothetical-as a senior graduating with substantial debt, I am forced to consider myself lucky when compared to a friend who already owes well over $100,000.
I went to the (ironically) free Loan Repayment Calculator at the public service website FinAid.org and punched the numbers. Beginning with a total debt load of $163,335, adding a very generous interest rate of 4 percent, spreading the terms of the loan over the standard ten years, and allowing for the $50 minimum monthly payment demanded on Stafford Loans, the results generated are enough to make any sane person seriously wonder if the full ride she turned down at the state college might have been a more humane option.
It doesn’t take FinAid long to calculate misery: With a monthly loan payment of $1,653.69, “It is estimated that you will need an annual salary of at least $198,442.80 to be able to afford to repay this loan. This estimate assumes that 10 percent of your gross monthly income will be devoted to repaying your student loans. If you use 15 percent of your gross monthly income to repay the loan, you will need an annual salary of only $132,295.20, but you may experience some financial difficulty.” A student with a total debt load of $80,000-about average among my friends-can rest much easier. At 22-years-old with only a bachelor’s degree, an annual salary of $97,195.20 should do the trick.
Meeting the minimum requirements of merely $100-200K per year casts a serious shadow on the job listings sent out by the Career Center in today’s email. Unless our nation’s priorities have shifted drastically overnight, it seems rather doubtful that “National Multiple Sclerosis Society – Program Department Intern” or “City of Long Beach – Management Assistant Program” will fit the bill.
Graduate studies only further exacerbate the problem. At a school like Washington University where so many of us consider the A.B. to be only the first initials to eventually complete our signatures, we can anticipate as many as two, three, four, or six years of graduate debt to add to the total owed. The virtues of higher education cannot be understated. But neither can the reality of student debt.
Rather, the exorbitant debt load encouraged by the University and private lenders-“Invest in your future!”-exists to serve alternate ends. Facing monthly payments of over $1000, the student is effectively left with only two options: abandoning dreams and embarking instead on the career path of the corporate whore, or refinancing and consolidating loans (have you checked your mail recently?) to spread payments into the indefinite future. No cause for alarm-our $163,335 debt load spread over forty years will only require an annual salary of $81,916.80.
Looks like our two options converge into one.
The extraordinary generosity of our friends at Sallie Mae, Citibank, and Student Financial Services comes as a direct result of a federal government that chooses to decimate education funding in favor of weapons systems. And this fulfils a larger goal, too: when the poorest among the best and the brightest face such an insane debt load, they are forced to turn away from the arts, humanities, and public service and instead consider only the virtues of business and the sciences.
And that, in turn, helps our friends at Olin, Monsanto, and Boeing with their own extraordinary generosity.