The most expensive piece of paper ever purchased

This is my final week of classes as an undergraduate. I’m not willing to say my time at IU passed in the blink of an eye, because four years actually felt like quite a long time, but there is a unique feeling of nauseous dread that comes from knowing that 16 years in the bosom of the educational system are coming to an end.

Most of that dread stems from the impending reality of paying back my student loans.
I’m far from alone in that fear. The majority of IU graduates have student loan debt, averaging more than $28,000 each per student.

Nationally, two-thirds of students graduating in 2011 had student loan debt.

The national average was a little more than $26,000 per student, making IU above average in at least one regard.

All that debt adds up, and there is now more student loan debt in the U.S. than there is credit card debt or auto loan debt.

Of course, the student loan situation wouldn’t seem so dire if there were plenty of jobs for recent college graduates.

Unfortunately, there aren’t. In 2012, a study released by the Associated Press and based on data from the Census Bureau and the federal Department of Labor found that 53.6 percent of bachelor degree holders under 25 years old were unemployed or
underemployed.

The sheer amount of student debt in this country, coupled with a job market that makes repaying one’s loans a hazy dream, has made college graduation a source of existential terror rather than a warm rite of passage into complete adulthood.

The student debt crisis is not a moral failing on the part of students or their families.

It is a systemic failure that stems from the underfunding of public universities and the sickening complicity of school administrators with the loan industry.

While picketing outside of Ballantine during the IU strike, I had a conversation with a woman who asked me how much student debt I had accrued. I told her, and she replied she had bounced between a few schools and was now more than $100,000 in debt. I wasn’t surprised.

Students need to be having more conversations like that. The student debt crisis affects all of us, and we need to stop treating our debt like a dirty secret.

There are only a few days left until I’m no longer a student and a few months left until my loan payments begin.

I’ll be trudging off into the gray wasteland to find whatever work I can.

The odds are good that I’ll be strapping on a barista’s apron or a temp’s nametag, but at least I’ll know I’m in good company.

Usually, opinion columnists take this opportunity to reflect on what they’ve learned during four years of college.

Two lessons seem pertinent here: if you’re pissed off about student debt — and you should be — or the way the University is run, you’re not alone.

But most importantly, I’ve learned that nothing feels better than fighting back.

­— atcrane@indiana.edu