Katie Brotherton should have learned to plan ahead. To say the least.
I am honored to be a daughter of Cincinnati and am humbled to have grown up in such a wonderful community. I attended St. Margaret of York grade school and then matriculated from the reputable Ursuline Academy. After high school, I earned degrees from Miami and Xavier universities. Because of my local education, Cincinnati is more than my hometown – she is the mother who raised me into the woman I am now. I am Cincinnati.
My pursuit in excellent education is rooted in a value system that promotes progressive thought for the betterment of the individual as well as society.
Obtaining useful or marketable skills via that expensive education? Apparently not part of the plan.
Education is a core tenet and vested interest of the functioning democratic society. Upon that basic assumption and principle, I am overwhelmingly incensed by the silent epidemic of crippling student debt.
At 25 years old, I have $188,307.22 in student debt, all of which is my sole financial responsibility.That exorbitant number was abetted by easy lending with a co-signer, negligence and lack of awareness, over-borrowing and the exponential growth of tuition.
Who overborrowed? Who failed to understand that your education isn’t some lofty “vested interest of the functioning democratic society,” it’s supposed to make you useful as a functioning adult? Who failed to whip out a calculator and do the math? Who writes as if English is a foreign language to her?
I work both a full-time and part-time job, and abide by a strict budget. Yet, I still sleep in my parent’s basement and am dependent for food, gas and health insurance. I am told I am not alone.
You have to be told this? You couldn’t find it out for yourself?
However, this particularly sensitive conversation is being ignored by our mainstream consciousness.
Um, what?
Due to reckless neglect, student debt will be the financial ruin of my generation, and there is an incredible need for a public discourse addressing this reality and its grave consequences.I want answers and clarity as to why this happened. How did I arrive at this position in life so financially handicapped and disenfranchised?
Well, you overborrowed. It’s pretty clear, really.
I followed societal expectations, earned an education and am employed. I will gladly repay my debts within the comfortable reason of affordability.
Um, what? You owe more in student debt than most Americans probably owe on their houses.
Yet, my wants and needs are disproportionate, and I can barely afford a PB&J sandwich, let alone the peace of mind to sleep at night.There is great irony in pursuing freedom through education only to be shackled by crushing debt. My current financial situation prohibits any fantasies of owning a home, getting married or starting a family.
Overborrowing will do that. So will underthinking.
My future and dreams are six feet under, and I am still digging my grave. I want to fight and reclaim my American and Cincinnatian identity, even if the only thing I can afford is the sound of my voice and tears.
I am owed answers simply because I have the right to pursue happiness. And since I am not alone in this debilitating epidemic, my peers deserve their voice as well.
I was a sad reading that. If Katie Brotherton is representative of her generation, then the supposed best and brightest will drown in debt of their own making, wondering how it all happened, and never finding a clue or taking responsibility.
– Uncle Samuel and Father Obama, children.
Thank you, Sirs!
Yeah, sorry, but that’s bullshit. You can’t blame Obama because there are silly, naive, dare I say stupid young people out there who decided to get 6+ years of education solely on student loans and then boo-hoo the fact that they are in serious debt. This is NOT the President’s fault or problem.
When adults encourage children to be stupid; the adult is somewhat responsible. When adults elect someone that encourages stupid children, they too are somewhat responsible.
I imagine the banks will talk to her co-signer about her ‘full responsibility.’ I don’t think that word means what they think it means.
Haha, that’s what jumped out me with this little genius: “all of which is my sole financial responsibility.That exorbitant number was abetted by easy lending with a co-signer…”
Um, honey, do you understand the meaning of “sole responsibility” and the significance of a “co-signer”?
Almost 200 grand and she been cheated!
Obama took over the student loan industry via the Obamacare bill. Same financial genius who invested the taxpayers’ money in Solyndra. If the student loan terms are too lax, you know where to place the blame.
– interfered by promising to cut the trillion in half.
Is the President responsible for this woman’s plight? Not directly so, given her age.
But his philosophical principles are definitely responsible.
And, sweetie, it’s abundantly clear that nearly 200K in ‘education’ still can’t fix stupid.
“Is the President responsible for this woman’s plight? Not directly so, given her age.But his philosophical principles are definitely responsible.” Exactly correct One point is Obama is the total ebodiment of the Last 100 years of the progressive movement. And should get equil blame for that point alone.
“And, sweetie, it’s abundantly clear that nearly 200K in ‘education’ still can’t fix stupid.”
Very true also, seems to me she should have just gone to hair dressing school and gotten an aprartment cause she ran out of common sense after “liberal arts 101″ class started.
The unfortunate part of this whole deal is that repayment of ALL debts should be enforced the same as student loans currently are. There should be no free ride for anybody. If you borrow money, you should have to repay; you shouldn’t get to dodge payment because you fit into a cultural mold.
Student loans are stricter because, unlike cars or houses, educations cannot be repossessed.
What the heck did her parents teach her while she was growing up?! I can’t believe the number of kids who go to college, get a credit card, run up huge bills, and then are shocked to find out that they have to pay it back. Where the heck did they grow up? In a pumpkin patch? Jeez, how can anyone be so DENSE?
As far as borrowing $188K to go to college, what did she think she’d be doing after she graduated to be able to afford to pay back such a debt? Was she planning on earning $1 million a year to start? It’s hard to feel sorry for this person. Another victim created by the liberals.
The shysters who sold this young woman a worthless education for 188K should be in prison. The bozos who loaned her that money should never see a penny of it repaid. This is nothing more than greedy, criminal adults taking advantage of naive children. American higher education is not a “bubble”, it is a scam. A ripoff.
A rip off indeed.
Probably two thirds of education funding is wasted. The course is a scam. The instructor is tenured fanatic with the intelligence of a Kudzu plant. And the student is as uninterested and as incapable of learning as he/she is in working.
Howzabout a Federal and State Sales Tax on Tuition? Might get some peoples attention. And Prompt a quick rethink of Juniors future. And maybe repeal the tax exemptions for Tuition. Raise a few bucks and cull the herd a bit.
Now what to do with excess Faculty I’ll leave to others as I tend to get a little carried away when thinking of those Bozo’s. Besides there ain’t enough tent stakes, honey jars and ant hills to go around.
“…My pursuit in excellent education is rooted in a value system that promotes progressive thought for the betterment of the individual as well as society…”
This tells me she has a degree in gender studies or something similar and equally worthless. Should’ve gotten a degree in Common Sense but I guess those classes were probably filled. Heh. I have no sympathy.
I don’t think those classes were filled (as she noted, many, many others are in the same position she is in) I think the courses have been dropped from the curriculum.
One: the “silent epidemic of of crippling student debt” is anything but silent. Every other website features a faux-adult bleating about how she had no clue. It doesn’t say much for the intelligence of the upcoming generation.
Two: there’s no mention of her degrees. I’m betting the words “women” and “studies” are featured on her diplomas.
Not a math major, I gather.
Nor economics, business or any class on the practical things of life.
But when all else fails, I’m sure she thinks going back for another degree will make everything better.
I think I hear a Cincinnati violin, way off in the distance…
Not far away, just very, very small.
Co-signing occurred. Negligence was made. Consciousness must start being aware.
Yet, my wants and needs are disproportionate, and I can barely afford a PB&J sandwich,
And on top of it all, she’s racist besides. http://ace.mu.nu/archives/332723.php
People like this make me weep for the future of my grandchildren.
You got there just minutes before me. Dang It!
With all her education and betterment and progressive thoughts, I would think she’d know better than to pine after a PB&J sandwich, whether she could afford one or not. Doesn’t she know PB&J is racist?
I have a friend who racked up $80,000 to get a degree in creative writing. Now, she is working the same retail job she worked while she went to school, making about $10 an hour. She complains constantly that she can’t get a job “in her field”. She is now talking about going back to school to get her master’s degree, get this, so she can take a break from paying back her student loans. I asked her what she planned on doing after spending another $50,000 to get a master’s and she said “I don’t know.”
Great, so you’ll be in for $130,000 and still making $10 an hour at a register, but at least you can say “I have my Master’s Degree!”
It takes all my strength not to slap her around when we talk about this.
She should try to get a TA position. At least then she won’t incur additional debt and can keep making payments.
If she got a degree in creative writing, then what exactly is “her field” that she wants to find a job in? I thought that a creative writing degree is what prepares you to be, you know, a creative writer, like a novelist or poet. Most of those people are self-employed, if they can make a living at writing. Tell her to get on with it.
A decade or so ago, I decided to go back to school and get a diploma in computer network support. I saved up some money, paid some as I went and ended up something under $15,000 in debt. The same month I graduated, the tech bubble burst and people who had been running their own networks were taking jobs as level 1 tech support and my degree was worthless. I paid the loans back anyways and took it as a life lesson learned. It never occured to me to say that because I wasn’t getting rich from it or even getting a new job, I shouldn’t have to pay a debt I knowingly took on…
Creative writing is almost as useless as one of those ethnic or women’s degrees.
That being said, she should switch gears and learn how to write dryly – i.e. technical writer. I used to do that and apparently one of my old resumes is still floating around in the etherworld because I still get around three calls a week offering me a job. It pays VERY well.
The nitwit is waiting for someone to offer her a six figure salary to creatively write? If she is any damn good she can put together a book of her work and put it on Kindle and nook for practically free. If it’s any good the money will be rolling in. Quite a few people have made very good money this way.
But it also means doing the work.
Did she never think to look up what it means to take out loans? What exactly did she think her monthly payments would be? I won’t lie. My husband and I have had our own struggles with student loan debt too, but we have never once made the mistake of thinking that the debt was anyone else’s but our own. And when things got tight, our budget got tighter. That’s life.
I forgot to mention that the biggest challenge for those of us who didn’t raise our children to run up huge debts for their education is to discourage our children from becoming romantically involved with someone who racked up a huge debt.
My niece learned the hard way, when she fell head over hills for a guy going to Med School. She earned their “living” money while he charged his education. He graduated, divorced her, deliberately took a low paying job and left her with most of his debt as the “person able to pay”.
That’s despicable, my sympathies…
I notice she doesn’t mention what her degree is actually in.
What has happened here is that she fell victim to one of the biggest ripoffs of the taxpayers to line the pockets of political supporters in history. Academia was a major source of campaign funds for Obama (University of California was his largest source of 2008 campaign contributions, more than Goldman Sachs). In order to shovel tax money back to his supporters, Obama took over the student loan industry and provided easy terms. Now academic institutions were free to jack up salaries, and therefore tuition, and still find students who could afford to pay the inflated costs.
What the federal government should do is look at the degree programs of people who currently can’t repay student loans and stop giving assistance to those programs because they are surplus in the economy. Then look at the degrees being hired on H1B visas because those degrees are in shortage and move the student loan assistance to those programs. They have that information. If they were actually interested in helping students they would not allow people in surplus fields to bury themselves under mountains of debt.
Her amount of student loans is what a mortgage would come to in many parts of Ohio. Had she gone right to work rather than gone to college, she might find herself with the same amount of debt and have a home to show for it. As it stands, this generation will not be able to buy first homes like previous generations because their cash that would have historically gone to house payments is going to student loan payments.
She (and we the taxpayers) have been ripped off in order to line the pockets of Barack Obama’s political supporters.
Thanks a lot, Barry.
Crosspatch
Awesome idea, too bad our politicians are too stupid to do this excellent idea.
Sounds like a re-run of the “Whining Song” the Quacks, who bought Homes they couldn’t afford, with Loan Packages they NEVER read, were singing when the bill came due.
“I want to fight and reclaim my American and Cincinnatian identity”
The poor girl isn’t just hopelessly in debt, she’s hopelessly stupid.
Her only option appears to be to publicly beg for contraceptives on national TV.
She might be the best reason for pro abortion rights.
The problem is that many people simply don’t understand compound interest. A reasonable person instinctively knows that borrowed money must be repaid with interest, but many college students don’t know that interest accrues while you’re still in school and that as the interest increases your balance, interest is charged based on your new, higher balance, rather than the amount you originally borrowed. At 6.8% per annum, a rather significant portion of the loan balance at graduation (15.4% of it) is interest.
“My pursuit in excellent education” Not IN, OF stupid.
WTF did she graduate in?, Gender Equality Studies?, She CANNOT string a coherant sentence together.
As for the loan debt, tough shit –
“A fool and their money are soon parted”.
“WTF did she graduate in?, Gender Equality Studies?, She CANNOT string a coherant sentence together.”
It is spelled, ‘coherent’. No ‘a’. The spell check here should have tipped you off.
“A fool and their money are soon parted”.
A fool and his…. The possessive must match the noun.
One should be careful of throwing stones, when one lives in a glass house.
unless you run all of your comments through a spell checker, you will have plenty of errors in what you write as well. Personally, I have keyboard keys that stick, but that is far from my only writing issue.
I suspect that if Random was writing for publication, like the girl was doing, he, like every other poster here, would have many fewer errors in his posts.
“. . . careful about throwing stones” not “. . . careful of throwing stones”
hahahahahha
“Careful of” is standard usage. Just because you don’t say it doesn’t make it wrong.
Well played sir. I will console myself with the fact I did not pay ~ $188,000 to learn to mangle sentences.
That’d be “social justice” spelling and grammer; the regular kind in English is “racist” and oppresive to poor people, you know.
Ummm, that would be grammAr
…and oppreSSive
Gee, this thread alone could help one earn a degree in English.
She could have gone to a community college. She may have had some debt, but not unmanagable debt. Many of my classes had less than 15 students in an academically rigorous (but unpopular) program at a community college. When I transferred to a four year school, I felt fully prepared for the challenging courses. I graduated with a managable amount of debt. Thankfully my father’s inasanely frugal nature led me to consider the cost of my education. Over the course of my entire life, I can honestly say that the best educational experience I have ever had was at my community college. There are not many teachers from my public school experience that stand out as exceptional or who made any great impact on my life. At the college that I transferred to, I enjoyed what I learned, but I would rate it an OK experience. My community college experience on the other hand was exceptional (except for a few of the liberal arts requirements. I am glad that I could not afford the luxury schools.
I had the same experience in Northern Virginia. The CC’s are set up as sister schools to the universities so you go into the university as a junior. I enjoyed the CC’S experience much more than the university. Universities are overpriced and they make you take their trash courses just to keep those trash teachers employed.
I’m older and just wanted to go and get out as soon as possible – so my strategy was to find out what the teacher wanted and then deliver it. It was depressing to see the quashing of thought there though for those young eager minds.
On the other hand I would advise the youngsters to live with it. That once they got out into the real world they would run into people they weren’t going to like and it’s best to learn now how to control their tongue’s and emotions because they are unacceptable in the work place.
Let’s consider this question: What bank would lend an 18-22 old over $100,000 to buy a residence or to start a business without some evidence they’ll be able to pay it back timely? So why will they lend such sums to a college student? Oh, right… government guarantees.
When I started college in ’68 my tuition at a private engineering school was $1,800 per year. Tuition alone today is 10-20 times as much. Why? Well consider this. Three areas of the economy with the most government involvement and funding are college education, health care, and housing – coincidentally, three areas with consistent cost increases well above the general rate of inflation. Econ 101 says if one subsidizes something its price goes up. (Just draw a simple set of supply/demand curves then add the subsidy if you doubt.) That’s a truism too few professional economists today acknowledge.
Exactly the point I would have made. Government causes
“Bubbles.”
She mentioned a co-signer. They must have had the juice to get the deal done.
Cor-ol-lar-y (noun)
A proposition which follows from one already proved.
“That debt. You didn’t accumulate that. Someone else did.”
Call me crazy, but for me the entire purpose of pursuing an education was to gain the means to buy a house and raise a family, not to follow progressive unicorn dreams and lollipop rainbows. In reality land, jobs are sought to make MONEY, not just to pursue a fantasy. What did she think would happen if she borrowed that much? MATH is difficult.
I believe that, “Math is hard!” is the precise bimbo quote.
“At 25 years old, I have $188,307.22 in student debt…”
Whoop-di-do.
I’m 58, owe about $150,000 on my primary residence, have been paying it off for years, and will keep paying until I’m paid up.
That’s the way it works.
Katie Brotherton did not make good life decisions. She chose poorly. Now she must travel the path she chose. That is true for many people in her generation. The sooner they accept their karma the better.
Many people make poor decisions and have to live with the consequences. A young woman might have unprotected sex and get pregnant (or a serious STD). Someone might drive intoxicated and get a DUI. Others might behave recklessly and end up seriously injured. Others make poor financial decisions and end up with serious debt that cripples their future. These things happen every day. Are we to bail out all of them because they made poor decisions? Not hardly.
A former coworker had a bumper sticker that read, “Stupidity should be painful.” Perhaps if it were, there would be less of it.
“How did I arrive at this position in life so financially handicapped and disenfranchised?”
I’d say it had something to do with pursuing an “excellent” education rooted in a value system that promotes progressive thought for the betterment of the individual as well as society. You’re going to need different kinds of promotion if you want to get out of this no-win scenario.
Try hooking.
Another over-educated buffoon…..no doubt an Obama supporter.
Dear Katie:
I grew up poor on a farm on the outskirts of a tiny town. To this day there is not a single stop light in the entire county. There were NO opportunities in the town when I graduated from high school. I knew if I wanted to make something of myself, I had to go to college. But I had no money. So I first joined the U.S. Army. To get the maximum amount of G.I. Bill education benefits, I had to take the crappiest job. So I was an infantryman for three long, grueling years.
After I was honorably discharged, I enrolled at a Big 12 (then Big 8) state public university. Every night at 10:00pm I went to work at UPS to hump packages weighing as much as 50 pounds until about 2:00am. It was a union job with healthcare. So between my G.I. Bill benefits and my UPS wages, I was able to almost pay for my education. Then another opportunity came up. Four professors (two with spouses) bought a four unit apartment building to live in. We agreed that I would live in the finished basement rent free in exchange for me keeping he yard mowed and watered, the walks shoveled after it snowed, the leaves raked, and performing very light routine maintenance on the furnace periodically.
It took me five years to graduate, instead of the normal four, but I was debt free and actually had money in the bank when I did graduate. I had several interviews on campus and was invited to visit three companies – IBM, Conoco, and P&G – for a series of interviews at those companies. Two of the three companies made me job offers. Almost all the feedback I got from the interviewers was how impressed they were with my determination and perseverance just to get through it all. I took the job with IBM. Within two years, I convinced a mortgage officer that my experience “managing” the building owned by the professor made me qualified to manage a four unit apartment building of my own. I lived in one unit and rented the other three. The rents from the three were more than enough to cover my mortgage payment, insurance, and taxes. I was essentially living rent free plus building up a small surplus each month to cover the expenses when an apartment turned over a tenant. After six years I sold the building for a profit of over $50K. Then I resigned from IBM, moved to NYC, and went to grad school.
I’ll stop there, but I continued to make good things happen during my 15 year career in NYC after getting my grad degree. So good that I retired before I was 50.
I sacrificed my ass off as an infantryman and while getting my undergrad degree when I was working insane hours humping packages at UPS. It was also a huge risk to retire from IBM and sell my 4 unit building to move to NYC, get a grad degree, and then who knew what would follow. But those were the choices that I made as a free person. I was prepared to live with the consequences of my decisions. You chose a different path. Now you get to live with yours. You get no mulligans. There are no do-overs.
Scott, your story and those like it,
Whoops. Laptop malfunction. I was trying to say that your story is amazing, and one of the kind that I will hold up to my kid, as the REAL way that the American Dream is supposed to work: success through busting your butt, and making tough choices, not waiting around for things to be handed to you. I love it. Congrats on all of your hard earned success.
But Scott, Obama says you didn’t build that career. Like he said, you didn’t create the U.S. Army that gave you such an advantage . . .
Over educated? No, sadly UNder educated in the skills and knowledges necessary to be a functional, productive member of society. It’s a shame that as a society we allow the least qualified individual (the student) to decide how education funding is applied.
I gotta nickel that says the Big O announces a grand plan to make student loan debt dischargeable by bankruptcy prior to the election. If that happens the GOP needs to push to make the granting institutions responsible for some portion of that. They are the gatekeepers allowing students to take loans for $188k on a worthless degree. They need to have some skin in the game.
Really good comment.
One quibble: She is neither under-educated, nor over-educated. She is uneducated. She knows a lot about something that is totally made up, like Womyn’s Studies or somesuch. Pseudo-science.
Reagan said, “It’s not that our Liberal friends are ignorant. It’s that they know so many things that just aren’t so.” He was wrong. They are ignorant. This woman is an example of that.
She is owed an explanation? No, she isn’t. That is just ignorant. She did not know how much money she would owe and what kind of job she might have to pay for it all? Does she not know how money works? That is ignorant. Value system of Progressive thought? That is ignorant.
Why is she so ignorant? She lives with her parents. Presumably, they co-signed, so why do they not pay some of it? She could tell them to pay some, or she won’t pay at all, and stick them with the bill. She probably does not know what being a cosigner means.
I bet her parents do, but they are not gonna tell their chowderheaded daughter, just like they did not warn her off this dangerous course. Well, maybe they did. Maybe they disapproved, and she got all Princess on them, so they decided to let her learn the hard way. And she still hasn’t figured it out. They are shaking their heads in sorrow, because she is still so ignorant. She simply cannot learn, because she is still a Princess.
Liberals are just plain ignorant. They are unteachable. They refuse to learn from reality and its hard lessons. It’s time to call them what they are: Ignorant!
It’s a Mexican standoff. She dumps the loan on them, she then gets dumped into the street.
“Everyone is ignorant only on different subjects.” – Will Rogers
The smartest person alive doesn’t know 1% of all there is to know. That’s a simple fact of life. Ignorance in important things like finance can be cured. Unfortunately, too many people are unwilling to make the effort. At some point, she was able to sign for those student loans without her parents needing to cosign. With the federal guarantees, that might’ve happened before the age of 21.
Did all of that borrowed money go to tuition, books, room & board, etc., or did some of it go for spring break in Mexico, clothing, iPhones, Starbucks and other “necessities” of life? We don’t know. Did she even try to work while in school? We don’t know. What did she study? We don’t know.
Should we feel sorry for her? Frankly, I don’t.
“She is uneducated. She knows a lot about something that is totally made up, like Womyn’s Studies or somesuch. Pseudo-science.”
That would be mal-educated, then.
If “mal-educated” is an English word; and if it isn’t, it should be.
Shhhh, don’t tell her about her little share of the debt Obama is going to leave for her generation to pay.
If they can.
Pardon us while we laugh at your dumb, non-thinking over-educated behind, libtard!
She could’ve gone to the School of Hard Knocks for a lot less!
She should have taken a couple of basic math classes. But, I suppose they were not progressive enough.
Hey, logic and having to make sense are represssive, maaan! Power to the people, stupidity is power!
When I was 15 there was a major recession in the Seattle Area.
I remember there were signs that said, “Will the last person leaving Seattle, please turn out the lights.”
But one thing I noticed, the TV news people were always talking to Economists on the nightly newscast.
Since I had a face for radio, I decided to Major in Economics because Economists seemed to still have jobs as did TV Personalities during recessions.
Maybe not good logic, but I did get a Degree in Economics. And it has served me well. I had my debts paid off quickly because I spent my first two years in a Junior College which cost considerably less than a University.
When you waste money on a frivolous degree with no demand in the real world, what do you expect?
Don’t answer, I know, A Government Handout, of course.
I was taught about compound interest in 10th grade math. Even If you can’t do the math you should know it is bad news. You should also keep in mind that NOBODY would lend a college student tuition money if the loan could be discharged in bankruptcy.
I would suggest that you consider the position of mistress to a rich man or some other similar position since I doubt that the military would take you. If you can’t get it better get used to being a debt slave for the rest of your life since it appears that you have no marketable skills.
What a sad story, made even more so for me by Kate’s photo. I was expecting some avatar of Sandra Fluke, Hillary Rosen, Elizabeth Warren, or a composite of all those, or many of my colleagues in grad school. Instead, she looks like she could have come down from any Thomas Hardy or D.H. Lawrence novels, a country lass with strong features, ruddy cheeks, piercing eyes and a mane of hair she barely manages to keep in place. Except those lasses had a mind of their own and a sharp tongue. Kate calls herself a proud daughter of Cincinatti, yet she’s begging for the taxpayers to pay for her idiotic choices.
Sorry to say, but the street corner prostitute in Cincinatti has more pride than you, Kate.
For all the soaring rhetoric and entitlement sentiment … “I am Cincinatti” … her fundamental grouse is pure Obama. “At 25 years old, I have $188,307.22 in student debt, all of which is my sole financial responsibility”.
Cincinatti must pay its “fair share” for her useless degrees. Why should her student loans be her “sole responsiblity” to repay? It’s like she thinks of herself like a soldier in the military. She flew the the liberal flag and now she is hurting. The VA takes care of its wounded. Why won’t Obama take care of the liberal soldiers who are wounded?
Not enough emphasis here on the real problem, which is the way everyone is told he needs a college education as a credential for a better job, even though that education really doesn’t add anything to his value at that job.
I do have some sympathy for all the kids who fell for that line. The one thing which is discouraging is that, when they default–as many will–it will be banks and taxpayers taking the loss. If there were any justice in the world, it would be the colleges.
Obviously the young lady is a graduate of the Sandra Fluke School of Personal Responsibility.
Sandra Fluke DID find herself a one-percenter to pay for her expensive lifestyle. Maybe Katie Brotherton could look into match.com.
Like Prof. Reynolds says, colleges need to have some skin in the game. Although this woman is employed, so it wouldn’t apply in this case.
Ms Brotherton’s life and my own have considerable overlap. Now, still being a teenager, I cannot fully testify to the responsible life. One of my older sisters, however, is Ms Brotherton’s age, and graduated from the same gradeschool. She now lives on her own, thousands of miles away from our hometown, with a house, a job, and a life of her own. In other words: yes, it is possible. And, no: not everyone but yourself is to blame.
Julia!
“…….Who overborrowed? Who failed to understand that your education isn’t some lofty “vested interest of the functioning democratic society,” it’s supposed to make you useful as a functioning adult? Who failed to whip out a calculator and do the math? Who writes as if English is a foreign language to her?…….”
ooh, uhm…… grrl, hot diss. You kin sit at our table……;>…………
My, the entitlement is strong in this one.
Ummmmmm……This is a joke, right? I mean, c’mon–who could possibly be stupid enough to incur almost $200K in debt by the age of 25? Oh wait–the same stupids who voted for hope and change….I guess you really can’t fix stupid. “My pursuit in excellent education is rooted in a value system that promotes progressive thought for the betterment of the individual as well as society.” Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? Dear God this is something straight out of Atlas Shrugged (which I am absolutely sure this stupid woman never read). What the hell does that gobbleygook mean? What value system? The kind that relieves you of the responsibility you took on? The kind that will, no doubt, seek to have the producers pay for your excellent education through taxes and fees that are coming–pay for moochers like you who haven’t a damned clue? The kind that Sandra Fluke wants–to have others pay for her recreational carnality? (An aside–Hey Sandra–I have an absolutely fool=proof, free and natural method of birth control for you. Don’t have sex. And if you do, spend the ten bucks at walmart for three months worth of birth control pills or a box of condoms and stop whining–but I digress.) Solely responsible for this debt with a co-signer? NOT. You bail and someone else gets hung out to dry. OH–has anyone heard of a single university going bankrupt lately? “That ball, it just keeps on bouncing….” Charlie Wilson.
She has two degrees from supposedly reputable universities yet cannot write a decent essay and has or had a complete lack of understanding of economics, borrowing or even the philosophical impact of debt upon one’s liberty.
Miami and Xavier are apparently not universities for those wanting a well-rounded functional education. They offer a life of the mindless rather than a life of the mind.
She went to the most expensive schools in the area. Miami is not actually in Cincinnati so she had to live there and she obviously borrowed to cover the tuition and living expenses.
She also went to Xavier which is a Catholic private school, presumably for graduate school. She could have lived at home and went to University of Cincinnati and saved a lot of money.
“I am owed answers simply because I have the right to pursue happiness.”
The first 3 words above scream: entitlement mentality!
The 2nd clause is a non sequitur.
In any case, the answers are easy to find, for those who want to find them.
The trouble is, some people don’t want to find answers: they want to construct a narrative that absolves them of their responsibility.
I made mistakes in life and take responsibility for them, but I have to admit: if I were so deep underwater as Katie Brotherton is, then I am not sure I wouldn’t look for a convenient narrative, as she does.
I have a problem reading this essay. When I got my BS I went to a public university and I paid a very low tuition, and I got a small student loan. When I got my master’s degree my tuition was higher but I could still work odd jobs and more or less survive with help from family , basic student starvation policies etc.
The fact is , I wonder if I could be able to go to school now, with costs being what they are now compared to what they were 30 (gasp) years ago.
So I cant really crow too much. I got a degree that led to a job. This was based more on my fascination with technical things than any kind of common sense. My common sense did not grow in until a decade after school was over. if it ever did.
What gets me are the number of people who say “But the colleges and the grabbermint ENCOURAGED me to take out all these loans!!111!!”. It looks like people actually think the government has their best interests in mind. Hello?
After having provided limited guidance in her life, I hope its the parents that are the co-signers. Ironic if they lose the house (and basement) as a result.
When my daughter graduated from high school, her father was gravely ill with cancer and I had been working 3 jobs. He died a month after she graduated HS so I called the Pell Grant office. Their first question was, “Does she have a child?” When I said no, they told me that she would NOT be eligible. So I renewed my mortgage several times and she graduated from college with 2 degrees. I still owe on my little house even though I’m retired. Now, that’s the American Dream…parents working to give their children a better life. Not me working and paying taxes for someone else’s child to go to school.
It’s a bit like that scene in Pinnochio where the kids get turned into donkeys. Except this time it’s not the little boys who didn’t go to school who are off to the salt mines, it’s the little girls who did.
Here’s an idea to help people like poor Katie:
We need a College Reinvestment Act that will give loans to people who ordinarily would not be able to qualify. This would eb based on the well known principle that a college degree in the USA is a sure fire path to success and wealth.
Banks would be required to make a certain number of such loans. The requirements could be raised higher and higher and eventually we could get the required rate up to 55% or so. A new Federal Education Agency, Katie Mac, would buy the loans so to keep the money flowing.
Banks could bundle such loans and sell then worldwide, and even create and sell deritatives based on them. We would need to be careful not to let the college transcripts of the people with the loans get out in the open, but the Obama Admin has established a strong precedent in that regard, so I do not see a problem.
What’s that you say? Something like this has been tried? And it was the worst disaster in history? Hmmmm…. you don’t say?
Okay, then here’s another idea. It’s called “Cash for Clunker Degrees.”
And if that does not work, there’s always “Shovel Ready Degrees.”
Don’t sneer at the idea of shovel-ready degrees.
It’s no secret that degrees in certain fields: Math, Science, Engineering, and Technology graduate “shovel-ready” students, with fairly high starting salaries. These students are easily identified in 12th grade by their high SAT or ACT scores.
The student loan bubble can be pricked easily.
For students with degrees which pay significant salaries, (see above), loan enough to attend any four year university. The students who graduate with these degrees ought to be able to handle the repayment out of a large paycheck.
Lower-paid graduates, different deal.
1)Freshman,Sophomore years: Lend only enough money for two years at community college and living at home. Tuition and books only.
2)Junior,Seniors Years; Lend only enough money for two years at a state school.
Try this. Analyze the repayment history of students. Make deductions.
For example, some majors may have graduates who nearly always have repayment problems. Easy. Make those majors ineligible for government loans. College professors won’t like this if the majors they teach turn out unemployable adults, but it is the university’s primary duty to protect the students, not the teachers.
By the time I was to go to college, my parents had used what they had saved for my college to pay living expenses because my mother had developed cancer and couldn’t work. I went to college because of loans, scholarships, work-study jobs on campus, off-campus jobs, and my parents giving me a little (and I mean LITTLE) living expense money. I lived very modestly while in college. I knew from day 1 that I would have to pay off the loans and how much I owed, AND I knew the consequences if I failed to pay them off. I used the loans in conjunction with other sources of funding and lived like a starving college student.
After I graduated, I took several temp jobs until I landed a low-paying, but permanent job. I continued to live frugally, so I still managed to pay my loans off ahead of schedule because I didn’t want the loans over my head. When I finished paying off my loans, I took a job at a company that again was low-paying, BUT they paid for my grad school, so I didn’t have to take out any other loans.
Maybe (just maybe) Katie didn’t realize how much money her 1st degree would be (I’m stretching it), but how could she NOT know how much she would have to pay back when she was getting her 2nd degree?! College is not a social lifestyle experience to delay getting a job; it’s to enable you TO get a job. Katie sold her soul to the Devil for her prestigious expensive education and now it’s time to pay up. Too bad for her. I’ve already paid my loans, so she (or our Administration) better not come to me (the tax payer) for a handout to dissolve her loans!
There’s a word for people like you. By that, I mean people who’ve worked hard, lived within their means, sought value in their education and paid off their student loans: Chump. That word also describes my wife, the legal immigrant who played by the rules.
Don’t you know that you’re supposed to be a poor, pitiful victim? How can politicians pander to you when you refuse to play by their rules?
You know, I sincerely feel terrible for her. She is truly trapped. She’s only 25 and she’s basically screwed for a long, long, long time. I can’t help but feel for her. She’s being pilloried, to add insult to injury.
She’s owed an explanation. Here it is: She didn’t understand, in any sense, what she was getting into. She didn’t understand what “paying back” loans meant until she started to work and had to use that money to write checks. Now she understands that part, and yes, it’s horrible. I would not wish this on anyone.
She was also played … there’s no other way to put it. Yes, it’s her responsibility, but she was conned. She was let down by those who should have known better: her co-signers. Someone needed to take her aside and say, “Missy, No.” There is such a thing as predatory lending and taking advantage of someone, and just because the government does it doesn’t make it right.
Both are true: She was horribly irresponsible, and she was taken advantage of. Unfortunately, the price of her lesson is much higher than most.
I’ll pray for her and wish her well.
“Education is a core tenet and vested interest of the functioning democratic society. Upon that basic assumption and principle, I am overwhelmingly incensed by the silent epidemic of crippling student debt.”
She should at least get money back from whoever taught her the flowery wring style.
“I am owed answers simply because I have the right to pursue happiness”
Really sweetie….you want answers?
Well since you have this right to persue “happy” and you did you got “educated” and now your upset with the bill?
Maybe you should have gotten skills that would have gotten you hired into a real job that pays real money honey cause Liberal Arts does not cut the mustard. No one cares if your mind has been “expanded” especially if it was empty before it expanded.
You got and education with out getting smarter, a feat indeed.
The poor kid – she finds herself shackled to an iron bed of student debt in a locked room – she LONGS to break free and finally does – she escapes her chain and rushes out of the bleak room, only to find she is locked in an iron house of national debt and owes gazzillions of dollars she has no current knowledge of…its sad really…
$188,307.22 and still no math skills. Is it too late for her to ask for a refund?
This child is pathetic. I’m sure if you check into her background, you find her basement is in a house situated in Indian Hill (very ritzy) and mommy and daddy have her covered. But still she’s going to bit– complain. Get a job, pay off your loans and move out of the basement? Nope. That would lower her standard of living.
A fool and her good credit rating are soon parted.
Dear Katie,
I am a Cincinnati girl, too! XU Masters, too!
Even though I am older than you, we have some things in common. We both succeeded in getting bachelor and masters degrees. I also attended an all-girls Catholic high school.
Here is where we have nothing in common. I was determined NOT to pile debt on myself. I succeeded. I doubt if I had as much fun as you did living in the Miami U dorm at Oxford, but life has tradeoffs, right?
What kind of tradeoffs did I make?
a) I lived at home during my undergraduate years. It was a bummer, as my little sisters and I shared a dormitory-type upstairs. But I made a lot of co-ed friends at college, fellow commuters, we had fun when we weren’t working or studying.
b) I worked two jobs my freshman year. (Over 40 hours) It was really hard. But I regimented my time, studied, and still got a 4.0, that is all As, taking calculus, physics, etc.
c) I slacked off after my freshman year and only worked one job, 28 hours, nights and Saturday, plus 40 hours a week during summer and overtime whenever I could get it.
d) I graduated with a BS Mathematics, got job offers, and took a job in computer analysis. After a few years, they asked me to try Accounting operations. I needed Accounting textbook skills. They offered to pay tuition for an MBA at Xavier University ON MY OWN TIME. I went to classes evenings after work and on Saturday. Took five years. I paid for the books. Good deal. Go Muskies!
Katie, you are not a princess, but it sounds like your parents raised you to think you were so special the rules of commerce (loans ARE contracts, with interest) did not apply to you. My parents raised all their children to respect the reality of life, including financial reality. Instead of spending tens of thousands on tuition to Ursuline, your parents could have sent you to a Cincinnati public high school, and banked the money (with interest) for your college future.
Sadly, the situation you are in is the fault of wishful thinking and lack of planning.
“…so financially handicapped and disenfranchised?”
After all the fancy finishing school, MIss Katie still doesn’t understand the definition of disenfranchsed. How does this crushing student loan debt prevent her from exercising her right to vote?
She had me at “lack of awareness”.
she is ” Cincinnati”
um, how about the loan debt forgiveness programs and income-adjustment?