What has Barbara Ehrenreich learned from men?
Perhaps to be tough.
What have I learned from Barbara Ehrenreich?
Well, I took a look at her Blog, here, and she's got a lot to say to the Freshmen of Fleece University, or really the freshmen of any university--the future debtors of America.
Yes, count your lucky stars if you make it beyond college with a debt of $20,000 or less, obviously it can be much worse, especially since debt is that weird reaper that shows up in your mail from time to time, it's that occasional "unavailable" phone call you get, or the reason that your employer has to garnish your wages, (after being subpoenaed by the IRS since you haven't been paying your student loans.)
According to many, and confirmed by my brother who works for a debt collector (calling me), your credit card debt apparently goes away after seven years. Your student loans don't ever go away--those Sallie Mae packets get larger and more frequent.
Well, moving on, I guess what anyone could stand to learn from Barbara Ehrenreich, male or female, is that college is the fertile ground where you are planted as a future producer for the land of the free. The majority of college grads, from virtually any institution, are going to graduate and spend several years making 8 - 12$/hour serving coffee, pushing TCS reports, or washing cars. You will be in debt long enough that your loan interest will creep to a point that banks have made plenty of return on you to keep seeking out more fodder.
UGH, debt. It's late. I'm not paying this. Goodnight Barbara.
3 People Speak:
This is precisely why I have spent more time out of school than in. After two semesters of higher education, I was convinced that I was broke. I moved home and went back to work. I made my way through the veritable food chain up to middle management of an international insurance group - not my desired goal, but financially, I felt it was satisfying my goal of being debt free. One day, I woke up and realized I was 27 years old, without a degree to my name, interred in the living tomb of the corporation.
The costs of my decision were unsightly. I had whiled away my time, sacrificed my personality, and had become arguably dumber with each passing day - but boy, was I loaded. I had money for new cars, new appliances, new everything. It was as if I needed that tangible materialism to compensate for my miserable existence.
My current perspective is that debt is a relatively small price to pay, considering the alternative I've outlined above. It's unrealistic to assume that someday, the debt and student loans will be gone. They're absorbed into everyday life, just as one replaces the toilet paper roll when empty or washes the dishes when dirty. It becomes a mindless responsibility. It's a necessary evil, and the way I see it, when I recognize that debt arose from improving the quality of your physiological existence? The gravity lessens.
That's my angle, anyway.
Yes, I agree, debt is the poetry of your bank account that keeps life bright in its own way.
brilliant words.
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