Dear Commons Community,

The New York Times has an article describing the plight of older Americans who still owe the government on their student loans. It is estimated that two million Americans age 60 and older are in debt from unpaid student loans, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Its August “Household Debt and Credit Report” said the number of aging Americans with outstanding student loans had almost tripled from about 700,000 in 2005, whether from long-ago loans for their own educations or more recent borrowing to pay for college degrees for family members.

The debt among older people is up substantially, to $43 billion from $8 billion in 2005, according to the report, which is based on data from Equifax, the credit reporting agency. As of July 31, money was being deducted from Social Security payments to almost 140,000 individuals to pay down their outstanding student loans, according to Treasury Department data. That is up from just under 38,000 people in 2004. Over the decade, the amounts withheld more than tripled, to nearly $101 million for the first seven months of this year from over $32 million in 2004.

Here are two stories from the Times article:

“Janet Lee Dupree, 72, was surprised when she received her first Social Security benefits seven years ago. About one-fifth of her monthly payment was being withheld and she called the federal government to find out why.

The woman, who is from Citra, Fla., discovered that the deduction from her benefits was to repay $3,000 in loans she took out in the early 1970s to pay for her undergraduate degree.

“I didn’t pay it back, and I’m not saying I shouldn’t,” she said. “I was an alcoholic, and later diagnosed with H.I.V., but I’ve turned my life around. I’ve been paying some of the loan back but that never seems to lower the amount, which is now $15,000 because of interest.

“I don’t know if I can ever pay it back…”

Rosemary Anderson, 57 is from Watsonville, Calif., has a home mortgage that is under water, as well as health and other problems, and $64,000 in unpaid student loans. She borrowed the money in her 30s to fund her bachelor’s and master’s degrees, but fell behind on her student loan payments eight years ago.

As a result of compound interest, her debt has risen to $126,000. With her $526 monthly payment, at an 8.25 percent rate, she estimates that she “will be 81” by the time it is paid, and will have laid out $87,487 more than she originally borrowed.”

Senators Elizabeth Warren and Susan Collins have introduced measures to ease the burden on individuals such as Janet and Rosemary but the bottom line is that they will see their social security checks garnished if they don’t pay back their loans.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

My colleague, Frank McCluskey, had a posting on his blog a little while ago raising questions about the purpose of a university. He asked: If a university does not support faculty research and publication can we still call it a university?  He argued “No” and that a fundamental mission of a university is to seek knowledge. The discussion moved to the future of higher education in the age of online learning, MOOCs, and venture capital endeavors such as Coursera and Minerva. An article in The Atlantic on “The Future of College”, published in August, was referenced that speculated on the influence of online technology on higher education. There was the usual give and take about whether certain types of online institutions would replace traditional colleges and universities, much of which has been well-reviewed over the past half dozen years. However, the quote that I liked most in The Atlantic article was from the Greek author, Petrarch, who said: “The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be lit.”  There is great wisdom in these words and they are as important in the 21^st century as they were in the 1^st century AD. A critical question is whether online learning is simply a vessel-filling modality or can it inspire students to learn and to want to learn on their own. I would say yes it can but it will take well-trained faculty to do so who can create highly-interactive learning environments in which students can in fact feel inspiration from a teacher and/or fellow students.  Many of the canned, mass-produced courses lack this close human to human interactivity and that may be their Achilles heel.  In my opinion, many of these courses are well-done, multimedia-infused content delivery that will best be utilized in blended learning environments where faculty will select some of the content but will reserve for the traditional classroom the interaction needed to inspire students.  Yes many students will enroll in these courses and programs especially those who live in parts of the world where higher education opportunity is severely lacking.  In the United States, as long as the elite institutions continue to offer and promote small-class size,  interactive face-to-face instruction, it will be difficult for fully online colleges to become the norm.

Tony