Well, it just doesn't seem to get any better. Here's the latest on the effort by bank lobbyists to defeat the reform of the college-loan business to remove the middlemen and better serve students and families.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/05/us/politics/05loans.html?hpw
Abhay, you could contact your colleagues at other schools and have the collective student bodies flood the email boxes of those on the pertinent committees. You don't have the lobbyists' cash, but you have numbers on your side. In an election year, that will get their attention.
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Unfortunately, this is an example of what should be expected as a result of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. I know I have mentioned this case several times on Obamadogs, but the impact of the ruling will continue severely diminish any hope the disadvantaged in the US have of bettering their standing in society.
ReplyDeleteIt can be difficult to see college students as disadvantaged, as hopefully, after four years of hard work, they will possess the tools necessary to serve them for the rest of their lives. Sadly, too many times college students are taken advantaged of because of their situation, as they lack the funds and resources to defend the injustices that are performed against them.
Colleges could serve as a counterweight to the lobbyists who continue to possess all the leverage against students when it comes to government involvement in the student loan process, but even students’ own institutions can serve as a barrier standing in the way of students’ education.
In their quest to attract students, colleges can neglect the current students that have already committed so much to the institution. This means, at Wartburg for example, promoting meaningless statistics to potential students, while two first-year dorms (Clinton and The Complex) have not been renovated since their construction.
Instead of being interested in helping students meet the financial demands that they in part promote, along with student loan agencies and lobbyists, colleges are more concerned about “trapping” students at the college, getting the most out of them in the process.
Students are being forced to work to pay for their education more than study for their education in some circumstances and this is a tragedy that should never happen in a higher-education environment setting. I am sorry to say this, but my time at Wartburg has sadly led me to conclude that I am paying for a piece of paper more than earning a college degree and I believe this is going to become more common as college become more focused on potential students rather than preparing current students for life after graduation.
Your honesty is to be commended, Joe. I am afraid that your experience is all too common and that you are right about the future.
ReplyDeleteWe discussed this same issue in last year's Capstone and came to a similar conclusion. Another aspect of this issue that we discussed is how the cost of college relates to our increasingly individualized society. Higher education has retreated from being a forum for discussing the great issues which plague our society, and has become more skewed to serving corporate interests and preparing students to enter such a world.
ReplyDeleteThe case of Ward Churchill, a divisive figure in any social/educational circle, is a great example. The details of his case are not as important as what it says about higher ed. His ideas and work were highly controversial, and were definitely at the margins of what society deems acceptable. He was not fired because he was academically dishonest, though. He was fired because he could not be a commodity for his university; he could not be packaged and marketed by his insitituion for application in the corporate setting.