By Sarah Jaffe
Tarah Toney worked two full-time jobs to put herself through college, at McMurry University in Abilene, Texas, and still has $75,000 in debt. She graduated in six years with a Bachelor's in English and wanted to go on to teach high school.
"Right about the time I graduated, Texas severely cut funding to our education system-thanks, Perry--and school districts across the state stopped hiring and started firing. It became abundantly clear that there was no job for me in the Texas public school system," she told me. "After two months of job searching I got a temporary position in a real estate office."
She continued, "In August my post-graduation grace period was up and all of the payments on my student loans amount to $500/month. Adding that expense to my monthly bills puts me at $2,100 per month. If I don't make my payments they will revoke my real estate license, which I need in order to do my job."
Max Parker (not his real name) enrolled at Texas A&M in College Station, Texas to get a BA in economics and a BS in physics. His freshman year was great-his parents had saved some money to help pay the bills, and after that he was able to get "more generous" student loans. He took a job to help cover the fees and bills that his student loans wouldn't cover, and worked about 35 hours a week during his sophomore year while taking 15 hours of classes-but found that his grades dropped with his workload.
"Part of the reason I thought to take on such a heavy load was the university's newly (at the time) implemented policy of flat-rate tuition," he explained. "This policy stated basically, no matter how many hours you enroll in (full time) for the semester, you will pay for 15. This means, you enroll in 12 hours or 20 hours, and you'll pay for 15 hours either way. Being economically minded, I wanted to make the best decisions I could with the money I had been loaned, so I enrolled in 15 hours."
He adjusted his course load, but in the spring of his junior year, a family emergency led him to withdraw midway through the semester, taking incompletes in his courses.
"I am 25 years old now, and shacking up in my parents' guest bedroom," he told me. "I have successfully made four payments on my student loans in the past three and a half years. I have over $48,000 dollars of student loan debt, and absolutely nothing to show for it. No degrees. No certificates. No qualifications. I have continued my education to the best of my ability since leaving A&M, but always at community colleges and always paying for everything out of pocket. As you can imagine, since I'm not 'qualified' for a decent paying job, my savings for school piles up very slowly, and then disappears when August and January roll around. I haven't been back to school in about a year now, and I currently work at Subway, making sandwiches. I don't make my loan payments."
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Showing posts with label Economy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Economy. Show all posts
Tuesday, 11 October 2011
Sunday, 7 August 2011
Australia: Good Start, but Only the Beginning of Decarbonising the Economy
By Jo Chandler
Turning around emissions growth this decade and then cutting greenhouse pollution by 80 per cent by 2050 - the target announced by the Gillard government yesterday - would put Australia on the trajectory the world needs to take to avoid the catastrophic consequences of four degrees warming this century, leading climate scientists said yesterday.
But they warned that the next few years would be critical and that the planet's systems were poised on the brink of a man-made climate shock equivalent to the most devastating shifts nature had ever delivered on human civilization.
''As a scientific community we have said we have to look at the end game, which is to decarbonise economies - especially industrialized ones - by mid-century,'' ANU Climate Change Institute executive director Will Steffen, said. Advertisement: Story continues below
''That allows some space for the developing world to bring its people out of poverty. So the 80 per cent target by 2050 is sending a strong signal in that direction,'' Professor Steffen said.
He was hopeful the momentum of such a target and the new technologies and confidence it would nurture would ultimately enable even bigger cuts. ''The first change is to just slow the growth of emissions,'' he said. ''The long-term aspiration target is great and very consistent with what the science is saying we have to do. But to have a chance of reaching that, we actually have to bend the curve this decade.''
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Turning around emissions growth this decade and then cutting greenhouse pollution by 80 per cent by 2050 - the target announced by the Gillard government yesterday - would put Australia on the trajectory the world needs to take to avoid the catastrophic consequences of four degrees warming this century, leading climate scientists said yesterday.
But they warned that the next few years would be critical and that the planet's systems were poised on the brink of a man-made climate shock equivalent to the most devastating shifts nature had ever delivered on human civilization.
''As a scientific community we have said we have to look at the end game, which is to decarbonise economies - especially industrialized ones - by mid-century,'' ANU Climate Change Institute executive director Will Steffen, said. Advertisement: Story continues below
''That allows some space for the developing world to bring its people out of poverty. So the 80 per cent target by 2050 is sending a strong signal in that direction,'' Professor Steffen said.
He was hopeful the momentum of such a target and the new technologies and confidence it would nurture would ultimately enable even bigger cuts. ''The first change is to just slow the growth of emissions,'' he said. ''The long-term aspiration target is great and very consistent with what the science is saying we have to do. But to have a chance of reaching that, we actually have to bend the curve this decade.''
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