November 2011
Occupy Student Debt?
22/11/11 18:47
I just received an email from a faculty member in my department with a link in it to a campaign associated with the Occupy movement, called the “Occupy Student Debt Campaign.” This website seems to originate in New York City — at least they had an event yesterday at the Red Sculpture in Zuccotti Park and another later in the afternoon at Madison Square Park. They call attention to a number of important issues surrounding student loans and the “debt bondage” that can accompany higher education for many people. But, like so much of the Occupy movement, just when it seems to be getting somewhere, it stops making sense.
What are the valid points? Here’s one: Education is a social good and its cost is small relative to other things America spends its money on. According to the Department of Education, the cost of providing free tuition to everybody currently enrolled in two and four year colleges and universities would be about $70 billion. The Pentagon loses about this much money in unaccountable spending every year (not to mention the astronomical amounts of money they spend that they DO account for). Ending the Bush tax cuts on the rich would add $80 billion to the national budget, which would easily fund every student in America’s tuition expense.
The Occupy campaign also suggests that the “debt bondage” that students are forced to assume, in order to go to school, amounts to a new form of indenture. And they single out private and for-profit institutions, saying that students have a “fundamental right to know how their tuition dollars are being allocated and spent.” They say that higher education is not only a social good, but that “Education at all levels — pre-K through Ph.D. — is a right.”
The “Debtors’ Pledge” which people are being asked to sign says that students “pledge to stop making student loan payments after one million of us have signed this pledge.” On the website’s homepage (but nowhere else) there’s a link to a disclaimer that specifies that this is a “nonbinding pledge of refusal, which is not a call to immediate default,” and that under the current “reprehensible laws, which this campaign aims to change, defaulting on debt obligations may risk your (and co-signor’s) credit rating and history, and may cause your assets to be seized.” The disclaimer ends by suggesting that before “making any ultimate decision…consider seeking independent advice.”
In other words, they’re just kidding. And furthermore, when you default and find out you can’t get many jobs and will never be able to buy a house, don’t go crying to them. They have no skin in the game. It’s all on you, student.
It gets sillier. There’s also a “Faculty Pledge of Support,” in which professors can state that they “can no longer acquiesce to the ruinous impact on our students of the surging cost of higher education.” Faculty, like the students, affirm the four principles of the movement and pledge to “urge our unions and professional organizations to recognize this campaign of moral support for the debt refusers.” Nowhere, however, do faculty members pledge to take a pay-cut or work in other ways to lower the “surging cost” of college.
Am I just being a cranky old fart, objecting to this? Student debt is a problem, students are vulnerable, and people are making fortunes on them. So what’s my problem? Well actually, it’s the seriousness of the issue that makes me so frustrated about the approach the Occupy campaign is taking, which I think makes it seem like a bunch of privileged kids and their professors whining.
I want to try to look at the specific principles of the campaign, from where I stand as a grad student. First, all education should thought of as a right. Pre-K through Ph.D. Really? Headstart programs, which demonstrably improve learning for thousands of kids at a critical time in their development, are only as valuable to society as yet another humanities Ph.D. — say mine for example? I think not. Next, “the federal government should cover the cost of tuition at public colleges and universities”? As they stand? With the ridiculously high costs of faculty and administration that are bleeding the system dry intact? We should just transfer that cost to the federal government, as is?
Next, “any student loan should be interest-free”? Really? For any student? The grad student from a wealthy family who’s pursuing an esoteric topic of interest to ten people on the planet just as much as the GI who’s just done three tours and had a leg blown off? And finally, “the current student debt load should be written off”? Okay, yeah, we wrote off the auto industry’s losses, and we financed the criminals on Wall Street. Why do they get breaks like that, when students, mortgage-holders, and other regular people are told they have to pay their debts? But is the solution really to jump into bed with Goldman Sachs, or would we be better off if we started making them pay their fair share?
There’s one other principle, that I don’t object to: “Private and for-profit colleges and universities, which are largely financed through student debt, should open their books.” Yes, they should. So should public institutions, which are also largely financed by student debt. We should look much more closely at where our education dollars go, both as individuals spending on our own degrees and as a society. We should ask ourselves if we’re getting our money’s worth, and decide what to do if we’re not. Perpetuating the status quo and just saying we’re going to walk away from paying for it is not the answer.
What are the valid points? Here’s one: Education is a social good and its cost is small relative to other things America spends its money on. According to the Department of Education, the cost of providing free tuition to everybody currently enrolled in two and four year colleges and universities would be about $70 billion. The Pentagon loses about this much money in unaccountable spending every year (not to mention the astronomical amounts of money they spend that they DO account for). Ending the Bush tax cuts on the rich would add $80 billion to the national budget, which would easily fund every student in America’s tuition expense.
The Occupy campaign also suggests that the “debt bondage” that students are forced to assume, in order to go to school, amounts to a new form of indenture. And they single out private and for-profit institutions, saying that students have a “fundamental right to know how their tuition dollars are being allocated and spent.” They say that higher education is not only a social good, but that “Education at all levels — pre-K through Ph.D. — is a right.”
The “Debtors’ Pledge” which people are being asked to sign says that students “pledge to stop making student loan payments after one million of us have signed this pledge.” On the website’s homepage (but nowhere else) there’s a link to a disclaimer that specifies that this is a “nonbinding pledge of refusal, which is not a call to immediate default,” and that under the current “reprehensible laws, which this campaign aims to change, defaulting on debt obligations may risk your (and co-signor’s) credit rating and history, and may cause your assets to be seized.” The disclaimer ends by suggesting that before “making any ultimate decision…consider seeking independent advice.”
In other words, they’re just kidding. And furthermore, when you default and find out you can’t get many jobs and will never be able to buy a house, don’t go crying to them. They have no skin in the game. It’s all on you, student.
It gets sillier. There’s also a “Faculty Pledge of Support,” in which professors can state that they “can no longer acquiesce to the ruinous impact on our students of the surging cost of higher education.” Faculty, like the students, affirm the four principles of the movement and pledge to “urge our unions and professional organizations to recognize this campaign of moral support for the debt refusers.” Nowhere, however, do faculty members pledge to take a pay-cut or work in other ways to lower the “surging cost” of college.
Am I just being a cranky old fart, objecting to this? Student debt is a problem, students are vulnerable, and people are making fortunes on them. So what’s my problem? Well actually, it’s the seriousness of the issue that makes me so frustrated about the approach the Occupy campaign is taking, which I think makes it seem like a bunch of privileged kids and their professors whining.
I want to try to look at the specific principles of the campaign, from where I stand as a grad student. First, all education should thought of as a right. Pre-K through Ph.D. Really? Headstart programs, which demonstrably improve learning for thousands of kids at a critical time in their development, are only as valuable to society as yet another humanities Ph.D. — say mine for example? I think not. Next, “the federal government should cover the cost of tuition at public colleges and universities”? As they stand? With the ridiculously high costs of faculty and administration that are bleeding the system dry intact? We should just transfer that cost to the federal government, as is?
Next, “any student loan should be interest-free”? Really? For any student? The grad student from a wealthy family who’s pursuing an esoteric topic of interest to ten people on the planet just as much as the GI who’s just done three tours and had a leg blown off? And finally, “the current student debt load should be written off”? Okay, yeah, we wrote off the auto industry’s losses, and we financed the criminals on Wall Street. Why do they get breaks like that, when students, mortgage-holders, and other regular people are told they have to pay their debts? But is the solution really to jump into bed with Goldman Sachs, or would we be better off if we started making them pay their fair share?
There’s one other principle, that I don’t object to: “Private and for-profit colleges and universities, which are largely financed through student debt, should open their books.” Yes, they should. So should public institutions, which are also largely financed by student debt. We should look much more closely at where our education dollars go, both as individuals spending on our own degrees and as a society. We should ask ourselves if we’re getting our money’s worth, and decide what to do if we’re not. Perpetuating the status quo and just saying we’re going to walk away from paying for it is not the answer.
Old and new maps
11/11/11 18:47
Bookshelf
02/11/11 18:46
I'm moving my home office today, which means I'm transporting all my books from one room to another, and shelving them. This always involves decisions about whether I really want to continue owning a copy of this or that. So I thought it might be interesting to jot down what I choose to keep and what I toss -- it'll be interesting to me at least, deciding whether to keep a bunch of these books I read for my comprehensive exams. There are a pile of books in addition to these, that I haven't looked at yet, so I don't know if I'll be keeping them. But I should really get back to reading more regularly; so hopefully I can start by working my way through those. In the meantime, here's what I reshelved today:
Primary Sources:
Crevecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer, 1782
Drake, Biography and History of the Indians of North America, 1837
Hart ed., American History Told by Contemporaries, 1902
Paine, Collected Writings
Paxson, History of the American Frontier, 1763-1893, 1924
Sinclair, The Jungle, 1936
Thompson, The Green Mountain Boys, 1839
Thoreau, Walden, 1854
Turner, Frontier and Section, (selected essays)
Agricultural & Rural History:
Bidwell & Falconer, History of Agriculture in the Northern United States, 1620-1860, 1941
Bruegel, Farm, Shop, Landing, 2002
Carstenson ed., Farmer Discontent 1865-1900, 1974
Clark, The Roots of Rural Capitalism, 1990
Clark, Social Change in America, 2006
Danbom, The Resisted Revolution, 1979
Dick, The Sod-House Frontier, 1854-1890, 1937
Donahue, The Great Meadow, 2004
Hahn, The Roots of Southern Populism, 1983
Hahn & Prude eds., The Countryside in the Age of Capitalist Transformation, 1985
Hedrick, A History of Agriculture in the State of New York, 1933
Kulikoff, From British Peasants to Colonial American Farmers, 2000
Lynn-Sherow, Red Earth, 2004
Parkerson. The Agricultural Transition in New York State, 1995
Postel, The Populist Vision, 2007
Rohrbough, The Land Office Business, 1968
Rothenberg, From Market Places to a Market Economy, 1992
Sanders, Roots of Reform, 1999
Shover, First Majority, Last Minority, 1976
Stokes & Conway, eds., The Market Revolution in America, 1996
Taylor, The Farmers' Movement 1620-1920, 1954
Dolan, The Yankee Peddlers of Early America, 1964
Wright, Hawkers and Walkers in Early America, 1927
Environmental History:
Cronon, Changes in the Land, 1983, 2003
Cronon, Nature's Metropolis, 1991
Crosby, The Columbian Exchange, 1972
Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts, 2001
Hornborg, The Power of the Machine, 2001
Melosi, The Sanitary City, 2000
Merchant, American Environmental History, 2007
Olivera, Cochabamba! Water War in Bolivia, 2004
Pollan, In Defense of Food, 2008
Smil, Creating the Twentieth Century, 2005
Steinberg, Nature Incorporated, 1991
Steinberg, Down to Earth, 2009
Tudge, Neanderthals, Bandits & Farmers, 1998
Tudge, Feeding People is Easy, 2007
Culture, esp. Reading:
Gilmore, Reading Becomes a Necessity of Life, 1989
Mott, The Literature of Pioneer Life in Iowa, 1923
Mott, A History of American Magazines Vol. I, 1741-1850, 1930
Mott, A History of American Magazines Vol. II, 1850-1865, 1938
Mott, A History of American Magazines Vol. III, 1865-1885, 1938
Mott, American Journalism, 1941
Mott, Golden Multitudes, 1947
American History:
Bailyn, Voyagers to the West, 1986
Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, 1913
Bellesiles, Revolutionary Outlaws, 1993
Bodenhorn, A History of Banking in Antebellum America, 2000
Bodenhorn, State Banking in Early America, 2003
Couvares et al., Interpretations of American History, 2000
Fahs, The Imagined Civil War, 2001
Fifer, William Wheelwright, 1998
Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men, 1970, 1995
Grun, The Timetables of History, 1946-1999
Hammond, Banks and Politics in America, 1957
Hellemans & Bunch, The Timetables of Science, 1988
Holbrook, Lost Men of American History, 1946
Johnson, A Shopkeeper's Millennium, 1978
Kane, Improper Bostonians, 1998
Laurie, Artisans into Workers, 1989
Lee, Conway 1767-1967, 1967
Lovett, Conceiving the Future
Post, Popular Freethought in America, 1825-1850, 1943
Richardson, The Greatest Nation of the Earth, 1997
Richardson, The Death of Reconstruction, 2001
Richardson, West from Appomattox, 2007
Richardson, Wounded Knee, 2010
Rorabaugh, The Alcoholic Republic, 1979
Slotkin, The Fatal Environment, 1985
Trachtenberg, The Incorporation of America, 1982
Young, The Toadstool Millionaires, 1961
British History:
Arnstein, The Bradlaugh Case, 1965
Bradlaugh, Selection of Political Pamphlets, 1970
Bradlaugh-Bonner, Charles Bradlaugh, His Life and Work, 1895
Desmond, The Politics of Evolution, 1989
Fishman, East End 1888, 1988
Fried & Elman, Charles Booth's London, 1968
Harris, Socialist Origins in the United States, 1966
Headingly, Biography of Charles Bradlaugh, 1883
Hill, The World Turned Upside Down, 1972
Isba, Gladstone and Women, 2006
King-Hele, Erasmus Darwin, 1999
MacKay, Life of Charles Bradlaugh MP, 1888
Marx & Engels, Reader
Mill, On Liberty and Other Writings
Moore, From Hell, 1989-2006
Niblett, Dare to Stand Alone, 2010
Quennell ed., Mayhew's London, 1969
Royle, The Infidel Tradition from paine to Bradlaugh, 1976
Secord, Victorian Sensation, 2000
Taylor, Even and the New Jerusalem, 1983
Thomson, Victorian London Street Life, 1994
Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, 1963
Tribe, President Charles Bradlaugh MP, 1971
General:
Braudel, The Mediterranean, 1972
Davis, The Return of Martin Guerre, 1983
Domhoff, Who Rules America?, 1998
Gilkerson, A Thousand Years of Pirates, 2009
Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms, 1980
Haskell, Objectivity is Not Neutrality, 1998
Himes, Medical History of Contraception, 1936
Rabiner & Fortunato, Thinking Like Your Editor, 2002
Scott, Gender and the Politics of History, 1999
Strunk & White, The Elements of Style
Trager, The People's Chronology, 1992
Wineburg, Historical Thinking, 2001
Zinn, A People's History of American Empire, 2008
Discarding:
Botkin, Discordant Harmonies
Bringhurst, Fawn MacKay Brodie
Christian, Maps of Time
Fussell, Frontier: American Literature and the American West
Harman, A People's History of the World
Hurley, Environmental Inequalities
Judd, Common Lands, Common People
Leopold, A Sand County Almanac
Lewis, American Wilderness
Limerick, The Legacy of Conquest
Marks, Origins of the Modern World
Marx, The Machine in the Garden
Montmarquet, The Idea of Agrarianism
Novick, That Noble Dream
Polanyi, The Great Transformation
Radkau, Nature and Power
Richards, The Unending Frontier
Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside
Sears, Sacred Places
Sellers, The Market Revolution
Smith, Virgin Land
Spence, God's Chinese Son
Williams, The Country and the City
Worster, Rivers of Empire
Young, Masquerade
Primary Sources:
Crevecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer, 1782
Drake, Biography and History of the Indians of North America, 1837
Hart ed., American History Told by Contemporaries, 1902
Paine, Collected Writings
Paxson, History of the American Frontier, 1763-1893, 1924
Sinclair, The Jungle, 1936
Thompson, The Green Mountain Boys, 1839
Thoreau, Walden, 1854
Turner, Frontier and Section, (selected essays)
Agricultural & Rural History:
Bidwell & Falconer, History of Agriculture in the Northern United States, 1620-1860, 1941
Bruegel, Farm, Shop, Landing, 2002
Carstenson ed., Farmer Discontent 1865-1900, 1974
Clark, The Roots of Rural Capitalism, 1990
Clark, Social Change in America, 2006
Danbom, The Resisted Revolution, 1979
Dick, The Sod-House Frontier, 1854-1890, 1937
Donahue, The Great Meadow, 2004
Hahn, The Roots of Southern Populism, 1983
Hahn & Prude eds., The Countryside in the Age of Capitalist Transformation, 1985
Hedrick, A History of Agriculture in the State of New York, 1933
Kulikoff, From British Peasants to Colonial American Farmers, 2000
Lynn-Sherow, Red Earth, 2004
Parkerson. The Agricultural Transition in New York State, 1995
Postel, The Populist Vision, 2007
Rohrbough, The Land Office Business, 1968
Rothenberg, From Market Places to a Market Economy, 1992
Sanders, Roots of Reform, 1999
Shover, First Majority, Last Minority, 1976
Stokes & Conway, eds., The Market Revolution in America, 1996
Taylor, The Farmers' Movement 1620-1920, 1954
Dolan, The Yankee Peddlers of Early America, 1964
Wright, Hawkers and Walkers in Early America, 1927
Environmental History:
Cronon, Changes in the Land, 1983, 2003
Cronon, Nature's Metropolis, 1991
Crosby, The Columbian Exchange, 1972
Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts, 2001
Hornborg, The Power of the Machine, 2001
Melosi, The Sanitary City, 2000
Merchant, American Environmental History, 2007
Olivera, Cochabamba! Water War in Bolivia, 2004
Pollan, In Defense of Food, 2008
Smil, Creating the Twentieth Century, 2005
Steinberg, Nature Incorporated, 1991
Steinberg, Down to Earth, 2009
Tudge, Neanderthals, Bandits & Farmers, 1998
Tudge, Feeding People is Easy, 2007
Culture, esp. Reading:
Gilmore, Reading Becomes a Necessity of Life, 1989
Mott, The Literature of Pioneer Life in Iowa, 1923
Mott, A History of American Magazines Vol. I, 1741-1850, 1930
Mott, A History of American Magazines Vol. II, 1850-1865, 1938
Mott, A History of American Magazines Vol. III, 1865-1885, 1938
Mott, American Journalism, 1941
Mott, Golden Multitudes, 1947
American History:
Bailyn, Voyagers to the West, 1986
Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, 1913
Bellesiles, Revolutionary Outlaws, 1993
Bodenhorn, A History of Banking in Antebellum America, 2000
Bodenhorn, State Banking in Early America, 2003
Couvares et al., Interpretations of American History, 2000
Fahs, The Imagined Civil War, 2001
Fifer, William Wheelwright, 1998
Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men, 1970, 1995
Grun, The Timetables of History, 1946-1999
Hammond, Banks and Politics in America, 1957
Hellemans & Bunch, The Timetables of Science, 1988
Holbrook, Lost Men of American History, 1946
Johnson, A Shopkeeper's Millennium, 1978
Kane, Improper Bostonians, 1998
Laurie, Artisans into Workers, 1989
Lee, Conway 1767-1967, 1967
Lovett, Conceiving the Future
Post, Popular Freethought in America, 1825-1850, 1943
Richardson, The Greatest Nation of the Earth, 1997
Richardson, The Death of Reconstruction, 2001
Richardson, West from Appomattox, 2007
Richardson, Wounded Knee, 2010
Rorabaugh, The Alcoholic Republic, 1979
Slotkin, The Fatal Environment, 1985
Trachtenberg, The Incorporation of America, 1982
Young, The Toadstool Millionaires, 1961
British History:
Arnstein, The Bradlaugh Case, 1965
Bradlaugh, Selection of Political Pamphlets, 1970
Bradlaugh-Bonner, Charles Bradlaugh, His Life and Work, 1895
Desmond, The Politics of Evolution, 1989
Fishman, East End 1888, 1988
Fried & Elman, Charles Booth's London, 1968
Harris, Socialist Origins in the United States, 1966
Headingly, Biography of Charles Bradlaugh, 1883
Hill, The World Turned Upside Down, 1972
Isba, Gladstone and Women, 2006
King-Hele, Erasmus Darwin, 1999
MacKay, Life of Charles Bradlaugh MP, 1888
Marx & Engels, Reader
Mill, On Liberty and Other Writings
Moore, From Hell, 1989-2006
Niblett, Dare to Stand Alone, 2010
Quennell ed., Mayhew's London, 1969
Royle, The Infidel Tradition from paine to Bradlaugh, 1976
Secord, Victorian Sensation, 2000
Taylor, Even and the New Jerusalem, 1983
Thomson, Victorian London Street Life, 1994
Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, 1963
Tribe, President Charles Bradlaugh MP, 1971
General:
Braudel, The Mediterranean, 1972
Davis, The Return of Martin Guerre, 1983
Domhoff, Who Rules America?, 1998
Gilkerson, A Thousand Years of Pirates, 2009
Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms, 1980
Haskell, Objectivity is Not Neutrality, 1998
Himes, Medical History of Contraception, 1936
Rabiner & Fortunato, Thinking Like Your Editor, 2002
Scott, Gender and the Politics of History, 1999
Strunk & White, The Elements of Style
Trager, The People's Chronology, 1992
Wineburg, Historical Thinking, 2001
Zinn, A People's History of American Empire, 2008
Discarding:
Botkin, Discordant Harmonies
Bringhurst, Fawn MacKay Brodie
Christian, Maps of Time
Fussell, Frontier: American Literature and the American West
Harman, A People's History of the World
Hurley, Environmental Inequalities
Judd, Common Lands, Common People
Leopold, A Sand County Almanac
Lewis, American Wilderness
Limerick, The Legacy of Conquest
Marks, Origins of the Modern World
Marx, The Machine in the Garden
Montmarquet, The Idea of Agrarianism
Novick, That Noble Dream
Polanyi, The Great Transformation
Radkau, Nature and Power
Richards, The Unending Frontier
Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside
Sears, Sacred Places
Sellers, The Market Revolution
Smith, Virgin Land
Spence, God's Chinese Son
Williams, The Country and the City
Worster, Rivers of Empire
Young, Masquerade
