Lee Siegel ended his profoundly silly op-ed (the one I discussed last time) on a vaguely self-congratulatory note: the purported wish that more people would default as he did, so that the current system would come crumbling down and the US would be forced to erect a “free” educational system.
(What patriotic sacrifice! “I’m not defaulting on all these loans for myself. I’m doing it for you, America.” Gosh. I’m practically moved.)
This pretense of a pretense of nobility is, incidentally, the exact way that Christians paper over their refusal to honor the Bible’s call to care for the poor: financial selfishness is renarrated as slacktivism, which is almost as good as the actual pursuit of a higher justice. “Oh, I don’t give to panhandlers. It’s not good for them–they need effective long-term help, which I also never bother to offer.”
At any rate, it seemed worth offering some strategies of resistance that don’t rely on outright fraud, theft, or dishonesty. These strategies are, I hope, sensible at the personal level and might, if widely enough followed, tame some of the insanity of the current system. They are less dramatic than the plan-to-default-and-screw-the-results model, but they are more radical than Siegel’s supposed slacktivism. (That is, more likely to get to the root of the problem.)
Three strategies for those who are in a position to borrow (that is, who are not likely to be able to cash-flow a four-year full-time college degree):
1. Work your way through college. Take classes part-time while working full time. Yes, community colleges can give you a decent education. Loads of four-year schools have CC-to-four-year programs. There are vanishingly few careers where the cachet of your undergrad program actually makes a difference, and most of those are kind of stupid careers anyway. (Except for, like, neurosurgery, which is probably pretty rewarding.)
2. Do not borrow at all until you have a career plan. A provisional one is good enough–it’s okay if you switch majors or careers later. But if you’re going to school to find yourself, go to a school you can cash flow. Or delay college and be out in the workforce a few years. It’s a less typical path, but not a bad one at all.
(Some day, I’ll explain why the above suggestion does not support the sentiment that college is mere career preparation. But that’s another post for another day.)
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