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 Marjorie Dillon might be tempted to look for a rebate for trading in her clunker of an education.
Although, she once had the makings of a real success story: young ambitious woman; daughter of a single dad raising three kids; first one in her family to go to a four-year college (Pittsburgh’s Robert Morris University); grandma helping to fulfill the academic dream; graduating with a bachelor’s degree in business administration.
But, today, the 26-year-old, of Coraopolis, PA., is singing the blues, the I’m-in-debt-up-to-my-ears-with-no-way-to-pay-the-bills blues.
What went wrong? Well, what didn’t? Where to start …
How about with Ms. Dillon’s 80-year-old grandmother who co-signed for nearly $120,000 in student loans? That’s no typo! Grandma now faces losing her home if the loans are not repaid. Tuition at Robert Morris is less than $20,000 per year, so one wonders what Granny thought she was subsidizing.
Next, there’s Sallie Mae, the lending institution holding almost $110,000 of the debt, which now wants $670 per month, just in interest. Didn’t they consider Ms. Dillon’s "ability to pay" when they loaned her the money?
American society as a whole shares some blame. Ms. Dillon believed (in her case, erroneously, representative of many others) that a four-year college degree would be her meal ticket “to get a nice job, nice house, and drive a nice car.” Where did she get that idea? Instead, she has only been able to obtain employment as a beer server at a bowling alley making $7.25 per hour plus tips.
Finally, we can look to Ms. Dillon herself. Admittedly, she did not plan well financially, borrowed much more than she needed, did not work during college, did not complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) on time, allowed her grade point average to plummet below a 2.0, didn’t keep track of her debt, and, apparently, was clueless about the loan documents she was signing.
“You dangle a steak in front of a dog and he will eat it,” she offers as an odd excuse.
To complicate matters more, Ms. Dillon is now the mother of a less-than-year-old daughter, whom she lives with in an apartment she can’t afford. She drives a car with a $329 per month payment (Who sold her that?), has $300-a-month credit card bills, and opted for $150-a-month cell phone plan. Other bills, like electricity, go unpaid, and she has to rely on the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program to feed her child.
This all begs the question: What tenets of economics did Ms. Dillon learn and then forget and/or ignore on her way to a business administration degree, which requires finance and accounting coursework?
Tragically, thousands of college graduates (as well as college entrants this fall) will find themselves in a similar (though, typically, not as dire) income v. expenses situation. The siren call of the higher education experience, coupled with the realities of the dwindling job market (thanks to outsourcing, illegal immigration, free trade agreements, H1-B visas, high taxes, etc.), and zero monetary management acumen, lead countless unsuspecting young people into financial purgatories.
We adults have a moral obligation to realistically advise our children about the realities of college, debt, and career choices — e.g. don’t waste your time, money, and mind on that sociology degree from that pricey liberal arts school. Surely, someone — an advisor? a professor? — could have spared Ms. Dillon some of her nightmare.
Then, again, would she have even listened, since, due to a mindset that is rampant in our country, it has become fashionable for able-bodied 18-25 year-olds to not work and receive taxpayer-funded Perkins or Stafford loans to finance their schooling. Where’s the conscience of a nation to decry such an irresponsible lifestyle choice made entirely possible via legal plunder?
Maybe if Robert Morris himself were still around he could have warned her. You see, Mr. Morris (the “Financier of the American Revolution”) was a self-made millionaire and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, who also spent a portion of his later life in debtors’ prison, suffering bankruptcy when he couldn’t pay back his creditors. His important friends in Congress managed to change the country’s bankruptcy laws so that Robert Morris could live his last days being cared for by his loved ones at home instead of languishing in prison.
Marjorie Dillon and her little daughter could use such benefactors. Perhaps her story will still do some good and discourage a few undergrads from choosing this fast-track to poverty.
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