Thoughtful Thursday: Student Loan Forgiveness

Yesterday, our President, Joe Biden, announced some student loan forgiveness amounts of money and another delay on people having to pay their payments. So many people have so many opinions about this situation. I can tell you that my opinion is that student loan forgiveness is needed at this moment but I have some emotions that are coming up with this situation.

That emotion is JEALOUSY!

To afford my foray into graduate study, I had to take out some student loans. I had to give up my full-time job to complete a residency requirement for my failed doctorate study, so I had to take out all the loans that I was offered in order to live. My tuition was paid for for that year, but that year only during my education. I did not graduate with my Ph.D. (long story about why, but leave it here by saying that I am not disappointed), but that one year of being a full-time student left me with lots of student debt. I spent most of my graduate study career both paying student loan payments and tuition at the same time.

It was not easy.

I spent lots of my graduate school time making some decisions that I had never had to make before. There were times when I had to decide if I could afford to buy hamburger or if that money was needed for tuition. I stopped paying for cable television because I could get Netflix for significantly less. I found it difficult to get through those years, but I did it. I paid my tuition and my student loans. At the end of it all, I had paid back about twice what I had borrowed (with interest) and now I am feeling jealous that I do not get any sort of credit for paying things back. My timing has always been extremely bad with stuff like this.

Here are my opinions - popular with some and unpopular with others.

I do not think that a public education should cost more than a minimum wage hourly rate. So, if the minimum wage is something like $7.25 (looked it up this morning - this is disgraceful!), then college students should not be paying more that $7.25 for each hour of course time. So, by my calculations, $7.25 per hour for a one hour course that meets one hour per week for 16 weeks should be $116.00. A full load would take $1,856.00 (based on 16 hour credit load). At my school, for one credit back in 1996, I had to pay over $3000.00. FOR ONE CREDIT! Graduate credits might require a bit more money per credit, but it should never be $3000 for one credit! I did not get that much attention from my professors over the entire semester.

I think that there has to be some sort of financial investment from the student into the educational system because when we get things for free, we tend to view them as optional. When you have paid money, there is a bit more guilt associated with skipping and "giving" institutions your hard earned money. Maybe. At least, it was more difficult for me to justify not going to class when I was paying for it - SO MUCH!

Some members of academia will have to accept that they are not worth lots of money to make salaries of academicians equitable. Business professors make significantly more than music therapy professors at most universities. I know that I make significantly more than the music therapy professors at my local universities. I interviewed for a position at another university program where I would have to have taken a $20,000 pay cut from what I earn as a public school teacher/therapist to be a university professor! There needs to be some more benefit to getting a Ph.D. than what is currently prevalent in the music therapy academic world.

I would love to have some sort of tax credit for those of us who paid off our loans. (Here is where the jealousy comes in.) If I could get some tax burden written off because I paid off the money I borrowed (and quite a bit more, if I am completely honest), it would really help me this year. I have no idea how that could happen, but it would be a great thing to happen to me!

I am pleased that others are going to have less of a loan burden moving forward. This will help so many individual people get out from under some of the additional financial burden that is imposed on families and individuals of repaying all that money.

I have been saying for almost three years that this pandemic is the start of major changes in the worlds of education, therapy, and "how we always do things." I can't wait to see what things happen - I've been writing about my ideas in some fiction stories that I have - things about music therapy training and education and how music therapy changes in the future. Lots of ideas and possibilities. It will be interesting to see if it comes to happen. (By the way, if you are interested in some of this fiction, here is a link to those posts. - Go in calendar date order, not the order that it is presented.) What will happen? I think we are on the verge of a significant shift in how we educate people, how we interact with people, and how we do lots of things. I mean, look at the changes that we have already gone through!

It is time to try to shake off my current medication haze and get ready for a late arrival at work. Happy Thursday.