How to Choose A College: Advice Originally Posted on WalletHub

Jacob Sanders, a journalist with WalletHub, kindly asked me to share my advice on the various roles of college towns for an upcoming WalletHub article.

Titled 2022's Best College Towns and Cities in America, WalletHub posted the article yesterday, including my commentary. The article was authored by Adam McCann and contains advice from several higher education policy experts, including Mark Haynel, Alexander Jun, Herman Walston, and Joseph Paris.

Here are my answers to five WalletHub questions about college towns:

1. In deciding which university to attend, how important is the surrounding city/town?

A college's surrounding city or town is a crucial element to weigh when choosing a college.

At one time, small liberal arts colleges in rural areas and small towns were very attractive to college students. There are many small private colleges, especially in New England and the mid-Atlantic states. Some are affiliated with religious denominations or were started by philanthropists in the nineteenth century. Sweetbriar in Virginia is an example of such a school. Rural charm and a lovely campus were once very appealing.

These small schools are less attractive now. First, most college students now prefer to attend college in a big city with a more exciting social scene and more opportunities to make connections that lead to jobs.

Second, the small private colleges are pretty expensive. Tuition alone can be north of $50,0000 a year.

Finally, enrollment declines have hit the small private colleges very hard, especially the more obscure schools. Some of these small colleges are having trouble attracting students. Several have closed or are teetering on the brink of closure. No one wants to get a degree from a college that may not exist ten years after the student graduates.

In my opinion, students should not take out student loans to study at an expensive liberal arts college, particularly one with no nationwide visibility. 

On the other hand, colleges and universities in large cities have drawbacks as well. Crime is a growing problem in urban America, and violent crime is on the rise. Many urban schools are located near dangerous neighborhoods. For example, Tigerland, a once-popular area near LSU, with many student-oriented apartments, has become a slum with frequent incidents of violent crime, including murder. It would be a grave mistake for a young person to rent an apartment in a neighborhood like Tigerland. And many urban universities are located near dicey neighborhoods that are similar to Tigerland.

2. Are college cities/towns a good option for retirees? What about families?

College towns are attractive to retirees because they offer many activities for the larger community, like athletics, theater, performing arts events, book fairs, etc. But the cost of living in urban college towns can be pretty high. When I attended law school at the University of Texas, Austin was known as a mellow town with a low cost of living. It was once a great place to live for students, retirees, and families. (I once bought a one-dollar ticket to hear Willie Nelson perform.)

Today, the cost of living in Austin, TX, is out of sight, and traffic is choking the freeways and streets. It is still a lovely place to live, but housing is quite expensive -- took expensive for most retirees.

Some college towns have good public schools that attract families, but some do not have good schools. The public schools in Texas are generally good in the college towns: College Station (Texas A & M), Denton (University of North Texas), etc. But the urban schools in Louisiana are failing, and few people would move to the college town of Baton Rouge for the public schools. 

3. How can parents prepare their children for managing finances in college (student loans, credit cards, etc.)?

Parents need to be vigilant about how their children finance their education. On no account should a parent or grandparent take out a Parent PLUS loan to help a young relative pay for college. Parent PLUS loans are just as hard to discharge in bankruptcy as regular student loans, and a parent who suffers an illness or a job loss and has Parent PLUS loan obligations will face a financial nightmare.

In my opinion, parents should steer their children away from expensive, so-called "luxury" student housing and encourage them to live in a dorm for at least a couple of years. Students should not take out loans to finance an unsustainable luxury lifestyle while they are in college. And parents do their children no favors by giving their kids fancy cars and unlimited access to credit cards. College students need to live on a budget while in school because they will undoubtedly be constrained by a budget after they graduate. Loading a debit card with a fixed monthly spending limit will teach students to manage their budget.

Parents should resist the allure of elite colleges that are expensive and may not benefit their children in the long run. I got a doctorate from Harvard Graduate School of Education because I was dazzled by its reputation. But the graduate education program at Harvard was no better than the programs at many public universities, and Harvard was very expensive. I admit I made a mistake.

4. What are the advantages and disadvantages of going to college in-state vs. out-of-state?

Going to college out of state is often a good idea. Going to another state to study exposes the student to a larger world. For example, kids from small midwestern towns can benefit from living in a more lively urban environment. I grew up in a small town in Oklahoma, but I did my doctorate at Harvard. (But I wish I had gone to school somewhere else besides Harvard.)

Out-of-state tuition is higher than in-state tuition at public universities, which is a drawback. But public colleges across America are recruiting out-of-state students aggressively, and young people with good academic credentials (high ACT scores, good grades, etc.) have a very good chance of getting a scholarship. I know of a Louisiana family who sent a child to the University of Alabama rather than LSU because it was cheaper to go out of state due to the scholarship aid.

5. How can local authorities make their cities/towns more appealing to both new students and potential residents?

Crime, crime, crime. College towns must invest sufficient resources in law enforcement to keep students and residents safe. College professors and their students tend to be more progressive than the general population and may think defunding the police is a good idea. But it is not a good idea. Universities must make sure their campus police forces are trained not to use unnecessary force and to be sensitive to a diverse student population. Still, in my experience, campus police forces are very mindful of the needs of their students and remarkably tolerant of students who do boneheaded things. Protecting students from sexual assaults and alcohol-related injuries depends in part on having a professional local police force.

College towns also need to keep real estate development under control, which many college towns are not doing. Real estate developers have built thousands of apartments in the flood plain south of LSU in my community. Many are touted as luxury student housing. LSU and Baton Rouge do not have the infrastructure to support all this development, and the rental housing is overbuilt. The city does not recognize what is happening, but outside investors are building too much housing that will one day become slums.

After a Long Pause, 30 Million Student Borrowers Will Begin Repaying Their Student Loans in February. Most Say They're Not Ready.

 Last year, in response to the COVID pandemic, the Department of Education pressed the pause button on the federal student-loan program. 

In March 2020, DOE allowed 30 million student borrowers to stop making payments on their student loans with no penalty and no accumulation of interest. DOE also stopped collection actions during this moratorium and stopped garnishing wages of student-loan defaulters.

That was nearly two years ago, and the party's almost over. Beginning on February 1, 2022, all these borrowers will be required to start making monthly payments on their student loans. 

And guess what? Almost 90 percent of fully-employed student debtors who responded to a survey said they are not financially secure enough to resume making loan payments. If they are forced to begin making payments on their student loans, they say, they will not have enough money to pay other bills--like rent, car loans, and medical expenses.

And the loan processors are sending signals that they aren't equipped to reboot the student-loan system for 30 million borrowers all at once. Scott Buchanan, a spokesperson for the loan servicers, said this:

From a resource perspective, from a system perspective and from a staffing perspective, this is going to put a lot of strain on the system.

Poor babies! Somehow I don't think the student-loan servicers are going to miss any meals.

 Nevertheless, three loan servicers are getting out of the business. As reported by Inside Higher Ed, the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, Granite State Management & Resources, and Navient announced that they will not be servicing loans when their federal contract expires.

Navient is turning over its loan servicing business to Maximus, a for-profit company that trades on the New York Stock Exchange.  (The current price is about $76 a share.) 

Maximus! The name sounds like one of the gladiators in that Russell Crow movie. Maximus was already in charge of collecting on defaulted student loans, a business that must be profitable. Bruce Caswell, Maximus's CEO, made $6.14 million in 2020. 

Some commentators say the job of jump-starting the student-loan collection process is so massive that DOE should extend the loan-payment holiday for a few more months. Others say DOE should forgive all student loan debt--now touching on $1.8 trillion. As Cody Hounanian, Executive Director of the Student Loan Crisis Center, put it:

We need to think diligently about what it means to start payments and if we're better off just extending this deadline and canceling student loan debt.

In my view, the federal government will not cancel all student debt, although DOE might extend the repayment holiday for a few more months. 

I think it is more likely that Congress and DOE will create more generous income-based repayment plans and make it easier for student borrowers to qualify for debt relief through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program.

Those reforms--if that is what one should call them--won't solve the student loan crisis. Tinkering with the system won't fix it. The only fair way to grant relief for distressed student-loan borrowers is to give them reasonable access to the bankruptcy courts.

Note: Quotations come from an article by Alexis Gravely published in Inside Higher Ed.

Willie Nelson: "Turn Out the Lights, The Party's Over"

Marchus v. Student Loans of North Dakota: Another Victory for Student-Loan Debtors in the Eighth Circuit

In 2020, Debra Jean Marchus filed an adversary proceeding in a North Dakota bankruptcy court, seeking to discharge about $38,000 in student-loan debt. After a trial, Bankruptcy Judge Shon Hastings wiped out the debt.

As summarized in Judge Hastings's decision, Ms. Marchus began her journey through higher education in 1975, forty-five years before she filed for bankruptcy. She first enrolled at North Dakota State University, then attended a couple of for-profit institutions, and finally obtained an associate degree in accounting from the University of Phoenix in 2013.

When Marchus appeared in Judge Hastings's courtroom, she only made $11.00 an hour working as a North Dakota grocery store stocker. Moreover, Marchus had never made a lot of money. Her average annual income over the previous fifteen years was only $14,493. 

As Judge Hastings noted, Marcus bought her clothing from second-hand stores, received health care from Medicaid, and supplemented her food budget with financial assistance from the federal government's SNAP program. She drove a 17-year-old car and lived in a one-bedroom apartment.

Ms. Marchus also suffered from serious health problems, which Judge Hastings summarized in some detail:

[Marchus's] physical conditions include arthritis, water retention, relaspes of colitis, chronic sinusitis . . . , no upper arm strength, weight gain, lack of blood flow in her legs, thyroid disease, hiatal hernia and kidney disease

After sifting through all the evidence (including more than 500 pages of medical records), Judge Hastings concluded Ms. Marchus's financial future did not look promising.

[Marchus] is almost 64 years old. She holds no pension or investment accounts and saved no money for retirement. Her employment and income opportunities are limited, and the prospect of [Marchus] increasing her income either through new employment or a promotion at her current job appears bleak.

Summarizing the evidence (which included more than 500 pages of medical records), Justice Hastings concluded that it was unlikely that Ms. Marchus would ever earn more than her current income. He discharged her debt to SLND in its entirety.

What are we to make of Marchus v. SLND? 

First, Debra Machus is one among millions of Americans who took out student loans to attend for-profit colleges but did not benefit financially. For more than forty years, Marchus attempted to improve her lot in life by enrolling at for-profit schools, and yet she wound up working at a job that paid only $11 an hour.

Second, Marchus's case shows how interest and penalties can cause a student-loan debt to balloon out of control. Debra Marchus borrowed $14,000 in 2007 to attend Aakers Business College, and she paid back more than half that amount with money she received from an inheritance. Nevertheless, by the time she filed for bankruptcy, her debt had grown to more than $38,000! 

Finally, Marchus v. SLND is another win for student-loan debtors who reside in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. Like Diane Ashline's victory in Iowa and Michael Abney's success in Missouri, Marchus's victory in North Dakota is a sign that the bankruptcy judges in the Eighth Circuit are becoming more willing to grant student-loan debtors the relief to which they are clearly entitled.    

References

Abney v. U.S. Department of Education, 540 B.R. 681 (Bankr. W.D. Mo. 2015).

Ashline v. U.S. Department of Education, Adversary No. 16-09028 (Bankr. N.D. Iowa, Sept. 28, 2021).

Marchus v. Student Loans of North Dakota, 630 B.R. 91 (Bankr. D.N.D. 2021).

Elizabeth Lally, N.D. of Iowa Judge Collins Leads the Way On Discharge of Student Debt in the Eighth Circuit, Goosmann Law Firm (July 28, 2018).

Ashline v. Department of Education: Dental Assistant with Master's Degree from Kaplan U. discharges $230,000 in student loan debt

 Diane Ashline, a 47-year old single mother, worked for 20 years as a dental assistant. Hoping to increase her income, she took out student loans to get an undergraduate degree and a master’s degree from Kaplan University, a for-profit school. Unfortunately, these degrees did not help her financially.

Ashline never defaulted on her student loans. Instead, she put them in forbearance during the times she was unable to make payments. Nevertheless, by the time she filed for bankruptcy in 2016, she had accumulated  $230,000 in student debt. 

The U.S. Department of Education DOE) insisted that Ashline be put in an income-based repayment plan (IBR), which would only require her to pay $65 a month.  But Judge Thad Collins, who presided over Ashline’s bankruptcy proceedings, rebuffed DOE’s arguments and discharged all of Ashline’s federal student debt.

The judge pointed out that “no evidence [had been] produced to suggest that [Ashline] would ever be able to leverage her unused master’s degree to obtain a higher paying job in the future.” In fact, he ruled, there was “no suggestion that her income would increase in any meaningful way over the remainder of her working life.”

Judge Collins emphatically rejected DOE’s demand that Ms. Ashline sign up for an IBR, partly due to her age. At the time Judge Collins issued his decision last December, Ashline was 50 years old. “Upon completion of a hypothetical IBRplan,” the judge observed, “she would be between 69 and 74 years old.”

Under an  IBR, the judge explained, interest on Ashline’s student loans would outpace her payments, and she would never pay off her debt.  Although the unpaid debt would be forgiven if she completed her IBR, the forgiven debt would be taxable to her. Ashline would then face a “student loan forgiveness tax bomb”--a tax bill for the entire amount of the forgiven debt.

Judge Collins summarized his ruling in favor of Ms. Collins with these words:

[T]he Court finds that [Ashline] has proven, by a preponderance of the evidence, that not discharging her student loans would impose an undue hardship on her and her dependents. She has maximized her earnings potential. Her future financial condition is not likely to improve to any significant degree. . . . Her expenses are not extravagant. Debtor has made the good faith effort to make payments on her student loans . . . and has deferred those payments when she was unable to make them.

Judge Collins’s decision joins a growing body of case law that rejects the argument that student debtors should sign up for IBRs instead of seeking bankruptcy relief. Indeed, Judge Collins himself has issued two other important decisions in which he discharged student debt.

Gradually, I believe the tide is turning in favor of distressed student-loan debtors in the bankruptcy courts. Increasingly, federal bankruptcy judges are recognizing that forcing college borrowers into IBRs makes no sense.

I hope the Ashline decision and other bankruptcy court decisions in a similar vein will encourage “honest but unfortunate” student-loan debtors to shed their unpayable student loans in a federal bankruptcy court.

References

Ashline v. U.S. Department of Education, Adversary No. 16-09028 (Bankr. N.D. Iowa, Sept. 28, 2021).

Elizabeth Lally, N.D. of Iowa Judge Collins Leads the Way On Discharge of Student Debt in the Eighth Circuit, Goosmann Law Firm (July 28, 2018).

In re Martin, 16-9052 (Bankr. N.D. Iowa Feb. 16, 2018).

Fern v. FedLoan Servicing, 553 B.R. 362 (Bankr. N.D. Iowa 2016), aff’d 563 B.R. 1 (8th Cir. BAP 2017).

You Can Find Justice in the Bankruptcy Court of the NorthernDistrict of Iowa

Fern v. FedLoan Servicing, 553 B.R. 362 (Bankr. N.D. Iowa 2016), aff’d 563 B.R. 1 (8th Cir. BAP 2017).

 

Detour! Don't Choose a College Major That Won't Help You Get a Good Job

As Junior Brown reminded us in Detour, a class Country song, we can avoid a lot of trouble if we heed the warning signs all around us. "Oh, these bitter things I find," Brown sang. "Should have read that detour sign."

And this brings me to the topic of choosing a college major. Many 18-year-olds, maybe most, have only a foggy idea about what they want to do for a living. 

 In the service of transparency (don't you love that word?), I admit to switching majors twice while in college. I finally settled on a dismal major in sociology--sometimes described as the painful enumeration of the obvious. I learned nothing of any value.

So--how do you choose a major when you go to college? 

First, consider what you are good at and pay attention to what friends and mentors tell you about your skills and dispositions. When I was a first-year student, my freshman English instructor, a reporter at the local newspaper, told me I was a good technical writer, and she read one of my essays to my entire class.

I should have paid more attention to her compliment. It did not occur to me that I should focus on a career that would allow me to use my writing skills.  I should have switched my major to journalism. It wasn't until I got to law school many years later that I discovered that my aptitude for technical writing was valuable and could help me earn my living.

Second,  take note of the academic programs that are being shut down by the universities. For example, Youngstown State University announced this week that it is closing 26 academic programs. Programs being axed include Art History, Music History, Italian, Religious Studies, and Dance Management.

YSU said that only 87 students would be affected. In other words, on average, these 26 programs had only 3.3 students.  I wonder how many Youngstown students were majoring in Dance Management.

All over the United States, colleges and universities are closing academic offerings.  Many majors that are being shit-canned (a sociology term I learned in college) are in the humanities and social sciences. Literature, philosophy, anthropology, art history, and sociology are being thrown under the academic bus.  You should probably not devote your college years to taking classes in these fields. 

I regret having to give this advice. Our lives are enriched by an understanding of history and an appreciation for literature and culture. At the very least, every American should have a basic grasp of the causes of World War II and the catastrophe it unleashed all over the world. If it were up to me, no one could get a college degree without reading William Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

Unfortunately, a college education has become so expensive that the primary consideration in choosing a major should be to get a degree that leads to a good job. Thus, I think it would be best for young people to cultivate an appreciation for history and literature on their own time.

Junior Brown: "Should have read that detour sign."

Private Student-Loan Debt at an All-Time High: TICAS Releases Snoozer Report

 According to a recent report by the Institute for College Access and Success (TICAS), the 2020 class of college graduates has amassed $136 billion in private student debt.  When this amount is added to the total student debt from federal student loans--about $1.8 trillion, Americans are on the hook for almost $2 trillion in student debt.

Interestingly, students in the District of Columbia had the highest average private-debt level: $51,738. Eight states in the Northeast were in the top ten for high private student debt. The average private student debt in Delaware for the class of 2020 was over $50,000.

As Cody Hounanian, Executive Director of the Student Debt Crisis Center, aptly noted, the TICAS report shows that the costs of higher education have "skyrocketed and are out of control."

But are colleges doing anything to control their costs? Not much. Higher Education thinks it should be congratulated because tuition costs rose less than the inflation rate--the first time in decades that tuition increases didn't exceed inflation. I suppose that's good news of a sort, but the critical fact is that tuition costs go up every year.

TICAS's report concluded with a list of policy recommendations, but they're nothing to write home about.

TICAS recommends more federal grant money for low-income students, more oversight of the private student-loan industry, more loan counselors, and better advertising of income-based repayment plans.

Ho, hum!

TICAS did not recommend bankruptcy relief for student-loan debtors who are overwhelmed by the college debt. It said nothing about cracking down on the private-college industry, other than a vague recommendation to "Tighten Institutional Accountability."

I've been writing about the student-loan crisis for 25 years, and I've read dozens of reports and policy papers by think tanks and policy centers.  

Most of them recommend more money, more transparency, and more lenient income-based repayment programs.  TICAS's recommendations added nothing new.

Another snoozer report on the student-loan crisis!

The College Bookstore: Where Are the Friggin' Books?

 An LSU student, Kathryn Craddock, wrote a scathing critique of LSU's book store--operated, of course, by Barnes & Noble. 

"The colors are bland, the lighting is nauseating, and the inventory is full of tacky, overpriced LSU-themed junk," Craddock wrote in Reveille, the student newspaper. 

She said the bookstore's atmosphere shares more in common with a Walmart than an academic building. "I would even go far as to say that the building and its contents are creepy." 

Ms. Craddock's assessment of LSU's bookstore is absolutely correct. In fact, LSU's Barnes &Noble outlet doesn't even call itself a bookstore. The sign in front of the building simply says "Barnes & Noble at LSU."

Of course, the bookstore has a coffee shop where it sells Starbucks coffee--vile, overpriced stuff. But the store is really a souvenir and t-shirt shop. You can get an LSU t-shirt there for only $35 plus tax.  Or you can buy an LSU cap that will run you close to thirty bucks.

But books? Where are the friggin' books? As Ms.Craddock accurately described:

The LSU bookstore host shelves upon shelves of nightmares. There are the cheesy self-help books and celebrity memoirs with terrible attempts at relating to younger crowds.

I don't live far from LSU's Barnes & Noble, and I occasionally browse around the place. The store's textbook section is squeezed into a corner on the second floor--kinda hard to find.

The first floor is devoted to LSU-themed clothing, bric-a-brac, and--as Ms.Craddock attested, celebrity memoirs and self-help books. I recall seeing a self-help volume titled Taller, Slimmer, Younger--marked down to only a dollar.

I still remember the campus bookstore from my college days. Most of the store was devoted to textbooks, the ostensible purpose for being a college bookstore.

But the store also had a respectably-sized section devoted to fiction and literature. As a first-year college student from rural Oklahoma, I didn't know nothin' bout no literature, but I was attracted to a line of books with similar covers published by Scribner. I bought The Masters, a novel by C.P. Snow; Hemingway's Farewell to Arms; and F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night.

I chose these books on my own; they were not assigned to me for a college class. And I read them uncritically. 

But I only knew about these books because I stumbled upon them at Oklahoma State University's campus book store. 

LSU's Barnes & Noble has a small stock of fiction, and you might find something by Hemingway or Steinbeck. But if you buy an LSU-branded water bottle first, you probably can't afford to buy a good novel.

And who needs to read works of fiction anyway when you can buy a self-help book that will make you look taller, slimmer, and younger for only a buck?

 

Luxury Student Housing and the Slumification of American College Towns

 In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, cotton production was a staple of America's Southern economy.  Even today, the United States is one of the world's largest exporters of cotton.

But cotton has some problems. Grown year after year, cotton depletes the soil.  Before commercial fertilizers became available, cotton growers simply grew cotton on a plot of land until the ground was exhausted and then moved on to places where the land was still fertile.

Something similar is happening in the luxury student-housing market. All over the country, college towns are seeing a boom in student-oriented apartment developments.  Developers buy relatively cheap land near college campuses, build so-called luxury apartments, rent them to college students and then sell the units to new investors--often pension funds and private-equity funds.

Is this a good thing? From an investor's standpoint, luxury student housing is profitable. According to one source, students pay a higher rate per square foot of space than other tenants, and students can take out student loans to pay the rent.

Even better, there is a never-ending supply of new students to keep the apartment buildings full.

But, just as cotton exhausts farmland, student housing gets run down over time, causing maintenance costs to go up. Moreover, college students are famously fickle renters, and they tend to search out newer apartments and offer more amenities than their old digs.

As newer and more luxurious apartment complexes come on the market, older apartment buildings become harder to fill. Rent prices go down, maintenance gets deferred, and then the luxury student apartment complexes of yesteryear become the slum districts of today.

We see this happening in the college town where I live. As the Baton Rouge Advocate noted in a recent news story, the Tigerland neighborhood south of Louisiana State University is "the storied college bar district and surrounding housing options once considered some of the most luxurious for LSU students. . . ."

But most of the Tigerland student apartments were built in the 1960s and 1970s, and they have seriously deteriorated. Several have been converted into so-called "Section 8 housing," housing for low-income households who receive public assistance.

This is no problem for the present generation of college students. They have their pick among hundreds of newer apartments that offer more amenities--fitness centers, swimming pools, recreation rooms, etc. 

Meanwhile, Tigerland has become notorious for crime, including murder. The Sandpiper Apartments on Tigerland Avenue are so infamous that Hillar Moore, the local district attorney, attempted to shut the place down as a "legal nuisance."

According to a 2021 newspaper article, Moore said the police had received 195 calls at the Sandpiper since 2016, an apartment complex with only 14 units!

The Sandpiper's owner asked the judge and prosecutors to be more sympathetic:

"If they shut me down, they should shut down the whole place," he said after the hearing. "The entire neighborhood needs to be condemned, to be honest. You would be appalled to know some of the crimes that are happening there." [As quoted in the Baton Rouge Advocate]

On the bright side, Tigerland is only a short walk to the LSU campus, and the rents are reasonable.  

Why should I care whether the neighborhoods around LSU are becoming slums? After all, I'm a retired professor, not a college student.

But I live in College Town, an old subdivision near the LSU campus. The Sandpiper, which the district attorney tried to shut down, is located only 1.3 miles from my home. 

Tigerland--only a short walk to the LSU campus

 

Three-Year College Degrees: Is That a Good Idea?

 I recently stopped off at my local natural food store to pick up a box of my favorite organic breakfast cereal. The stuff tastes like maple-flavored cardboard, which I prefer to strawberry-flavored cardboard.

This cereal is expensive, and when I picked up the box, I noticed it seemed too light--like it was only half full. I realized then that the cereal manufacturer was hiding its rising costs by giving me less for my money instead of charging me more.

Something like that is happening in higher education. According to Inside Higher Ed, "Higher education thought leaders" and several colleges are developing three-year college degree programs. 

Why? Because a college education has gotten intolerably expensive, and a three-year program would theoretically reduce the cost of a college education by 25 percent.

Several models would slash the total number of credit hours from 120 to 90. Sort of like my breakfast cereal. Colleges keep their costs down by offering students fewer courses.

Is this a good idea?

Maybe. Most people agree that many students are taking required courses that don't interest them in the least. Why should an engineering student have to take a course in biology?

But the "thought leaders" are forgetting one critically important fact. Most students don't complete their college degrees in four years. In fact, only a little more than half the students at public universities  (57.6 percent) get their degrees in six years!

Private colleges have a slightly higher graduation rate.  Still, only about two-thirds of private-school students graduate within six years.

That tells me that most college students are in no hurry to complete their degrees and enter the world of work.

Some experts think that three-year college programs have significant drawbacks. A Connecticut college discontinued its three-year program because it "did not allow for the psychosocial and academic development of 18- to 22-year olds" that would occur if students were on campus for four years.

In an article published ten years ago, the Washington Post reported that three-year college programs are not catching on. Some students dropped out of the three-year option, the paper said, because they wanted more time to participate in student activities.

I applaud any effort to cut the cost of going to college. And maybe some of those required classes should be dropped. When I was a student (in the previous century), I took required courses in history, geography, biology, and chemistry.

Except for my American history course, which I loved, the information I got from my required classes went in one ear and out the other. I remember selling my chemistry text within an hour after finishing my final exam. (I got a C.)

Let's keep working on ideas to cut the cost of going to college. We've simply got to get tuition prices down and keep students from taking out student loans they can't repay.  Three-year college programs may be part of the answer.

But let's not cut history courses from the college curriculum. I took an American history class when I was a college freshman, and I still remember why Washington crossed the Delaware.

Why did Washington cross the Delaware, and who cares anymore?

College students: Don't Take Out Student Loans to Pay for a Luxury Apartment

 When I was a child, my parents were poor. That was OK because almost everyone in my little Oklahoma town was poor, and we all told each other that we were in the middle class.

By the time I graduated high school, my parents had clawed their way into the actual middle class, and they sent me off to Oklahoma State University to be "educated."

I moved my stuff (a few clothes and an electric popcorn popper) into Cordell Hall, an enormous and depressing men's dorm. I could have signed up to live in a newer dorm--one that had air conditioning, but that would have cost my parents more money.

Reflecting back on that experience, Cordell Hall wasn't so bad. My roommate and I installed a window fan that kept our dorm room temperature down to a comfortable 85 degrees, and I became friends with dozens of guys who were sweating it out with me in Cordell Hall.

Today, college kids have more housing options. They can live in a university dormitory or move into a "luxury" student apartment complex.

What is a luxury apartment complex? Based on the advertising, it is an apartment building with a "resort-style" swimming pool, a fitness gym, in-unit clothes washers and driers, granite kitchen counters, and big televisions. 

What does that cost? A lot. A one-bedroom apartment with a bath can cost $1100 a month or more. Older apartment complexes are cheaper, and students can always cut their costs a bit by sharing a unit.  In Baton Rouge, the luxury apartment complexes have lots of five-bedroom apartments for rent.

Millions of young people from low-income families arrive on their college campuses with access to more cash than they've ever seen before--cash in the form of federal student loans.  If they use some of that loan money to rent a luxury apartment, they can live better than their parents.

What does it matter how much an apartment costs if students take out student loans to pay the rent? And if they max out on the amount of federal loan money they need, they can get their parents or grandparents to take out Parent PLUS loans.

But hear these words of caution. Students should not take on more college debt just to live in a luxury apartment complex with a swimming pool and a fitness gym.  

Why? Because it is easy to get used to so-called luxury living while in college. And students who take out loans to pay for a classy address may graduate to find they can't get a job that pays enough to support their upscale lifestyle.

If that happens, these hapless students will wake up to the shock of seeing their standard of living go down after they graduate.  They may wind up having to vacate their luxury apartment to move into a dump on the wrong side of town--the dump where they should have lived while they were in college.

The Vue: Another Luxury Student Apartment Complex is Coming to Baton Rouge

Thinking About Going to Law School? Read ABA's Report on the Impact of Student Debt on Young Lawyers

 If you are thinking about going to law school, you should read a recent report titled "Student Debt: The Holistic Impact on Today's Young Lawyers."

According to the ABA's Young Lawyers Division, 90 percent of young lawyers who responded to an ABA survey said they had taken out student loans to finance their legal education. On average, these young attorneys reported taking on $108,000 in student debt.

The debt level for young Black lawyers was even higher--on average, young African American attorneys had accumulated student debt totaling more than $200,000.

Did any of these young lawyers feel regret about their indebtedness? You bet. 

Ninety percent of the respondents said that "their debt impacted their advancement toward major life milestones, and a majority of borrowers said they are anxious, stressed, regretful or guilty due to their loan debt" (as summarized by Insider Higher Ed's Alexis Gravely).

Did these young lawyers feel like they got good value for their law school tuition? Less than half (47 percent) said that their legal education was worth the cost.

How many respondents would still go to law school if they had the opportunity to live their lives over? Only about 6 in 10.  And only a little more than half of the lawyers surveyed (55 percent) said they would attend the same law school.

 In fact, more than half of the survey respondents who were dissatisfied with their law school said they wished they had chosen a school that charged lower tuition. About three out of ten said they wished they had chosen a school located in a better job market.

In essence, the ABA uncovered a high level of regret and dissatisfaction among young lawyers, feelings associated with their student debt.

Does the ABA have any suggestions for solving the problems that were identified by their survey? Not really. 

Here are the ABA's recommendations, which are mostly bullshit:

• "Expand access to and awareness of, free financial and mental health resources for recent law graduates . . ." In other words, free psychiatrists and debt counselors!

• "Continue to lead, sponsor, and support initiatives that holistically foster financial wellness and professional development of young lawyers."  I have no idea what that means.

• "Improve the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program . . ."  Lots of luck!  

• "Improve financial literacy and awareness of the legal job market and the cost of law school attendance . . . ." In other words, law students should wise up.

• "Reform the federal student aid programs . . . ." Again, lots of luck.

The ABA had some more vacuous suggestions, but I won't bore you with them.

Note, however, the ABA did not advocate shutting down all the second- and third-tier law schools that are charging their students out the butt for their law degrees and then turning them out into a lousy job market.

Nor did the ABA advocate lowering law-school tuition rates, which are north of $50,000 a year at many schools.

So--thanks for nothing, ABA.

105 Organizations Want Biden to Cancel All Student Loan Debt: It Ain't Happenin'

 More than one hundred public interest groups sent a letter to President Biden this week urging him to cancel all student debt. How much are we talking about? Close to $2 trillion.

I will say upfront that I support wholesale student-loan forgiveness. As numerous studies have pointed out, burdensome student debt has kept millions of Americans from buying homes, having children, and saving for retirement. 

If the President were to cancel all student debt, 45 million college-loan borrowers could pour approximately $5 billion a month back into the economy.  That would be good for everybody.

Nevertheless, I don't think President Biden will wipe out $2 trillion in student debt. As Betsy DeVos, President Trump's Education Secretary, pointed out in a 2018 speech, student loans make up one-third of all federal assets. 

What will be the consequences if the federal government removes one-third of its assets from the national balance sheet?  I don't think anyone knows.

Also, the President surely realizes that forgiving all student debt undermines the integrity of the federal student-loan program.  If all student loans are forgiven this year, how can the Department of Education expect to collect on the student loans it makes in the future?

Moreover, I don't see the wisdom of wiping out $2 billion in student debt unless American higher education is fundamentally reformed. Tuition rates have reached an insane level--$25 thousand per semester at most private colleges. Colleges are cranking out worthless degrees in the liberal arts and social sciences, not to mention vapid graduate degrees in law and business.

And we have far too many colleges. Does it make sense to grant wholesale student-loan forgiveness while the government continues propping up the for-profit college industry and small schools that are losing enrollment and teetering on closure?

I think everyone who calls for massive student-loan forgiveness is sincere. I believe our President and most members of Congress really want to grant relief to millions of Americans who are saddled with unmanageable debt levels.

But when we look closely at the federal student loan program, we see what a monster it has become. We can't fix the loan program without fixing higher education on a massive scale.  And no one has a clue how we can do that.

LSU buys out football coach's contract: What's $17 million among friends?

 A few days ago, LSU announced it is getting rid of Ed  Orgeron, LSU's football coach.  Orgeron coached LSU's football team to a national championship in 2019, but what has he done for us lately?

What will it cost to buy out Orgeron's contract? Almost $17 million. Orgeron gets the cash in installments, but he gets the first half a million in December.

LSU will also buy out several members of Orgeron's coaching staff. What will that cost? Another $9.5 million.

And the university is still paying for some earlier buyouts. In 2020, LSU bought out defensive coordinator Bo Pelini's contract. That cost LSU $4 million. 

It also bought out a passing game coordinator's contract. But that was chump change. It only cost LSU $1 million.

Money, money, money. LSU renovated the football team's locker room in 2019.  That cost a cool $28 million. Each player gets his own sleeping space in case he gets tired while studying for exams.

College sports is big business. Everyone understands that. But does it have anything to do with the students?

Apparently not. Every time LSU's athletic department spends a ton of money, its PR people remind us that LSU's football program is a moneymaker and that students don't have to pay a dime to support it.

I'm not sure I believe that line. LSU football wasn't a moneymaker in 2020 when the COVID pandemic virtually shut down college sports.

In any event, students probably aren't paying attention. On any given day, students walk across the LSU campus with their eyes fixated on their cellphones. Many don't bother to use the crosswalks. They just meander across the streets anywhere they choose.

Just a few days ago,  two cars collided on Highland Avenue, which runs right through campus. As you can see from the photo, one of the cars flipped over and was totaled.

The speed limit on Highland Road is 30 miles an hour. Maybe LSU should spend less money on football coaches and devote more resources to traffic control.

Look both ways before you cross the street on the LSU campus.

There are no cold guns: Alec Baldwin shoulda been an Oklahoma Boy Scout

 I learned about gun safety from the Boy Scouts. Every year my Scout troop went to Summer Camp at Camp George Thomas, and we kids spent one hour every day on the rifle range.

Our gun instructor was a grizzled Army sergeant on active duty at Fort Sill, and he was all business. He assigned each Scout a  bolt-action rifle and a punchboard that held ten little bullets--.22 shorts. 

Sarge gave us strict instructions to always point our rifles down-range and not shoot until he gave the order. 

And then he would boom out these majestic words:

"Ready on the right? Ready on the left? Ready on the firing line. Gentlemen, you may commence firing."

Gentlemen? He called us gentlemen! Just like we were grownups!

Our rifles could only hold one bullet--the ammo magazines had been removed. We all fired one time, ejected the tiny shell cases from our rifles, and then inserted the shell cases in the pegboards the sergeant had given us.

At the end of each exercise, the sergeant collected the pegboards and made sure no shell casing was missing. Thus, it was impossible for a bullet to go astray.

I don't recall being hectored by anyone about gun safety when I was a Scout.  We were told the two cardinal rules of gun safety and expected to follow them.

And what were those rules? 1) Every gun is loaded; 2) Never point a gun at anyone you don't intend to shoot.  That's all we needed to know to avoid a gun accident.

Poor Alec Baldwin killed a woman on a movie set a few days ago. Believing his weapon was a prop gun that shot blanks, Baldwin pulled the trigger. Unfortunately, the gun was loaded with five live rounds.

I do not blame Mr. Baldwin for this tragedy, and I hope no criminal charges will be filed against him. Someone put five lethal bullets in the pistol that he fired, and someone shouted "cold gun" just before the accident--an affirmation that the gun was safe.

Nevertheless, if Alec Baldwin had been an Oklahoma Boy Scout when he was a child, I think he would have assumed the gun he was given on that New Mexico movie set was loaded with live rounds. I think he would have checked the gun himself.

The Boy Scouts have fallen on hard times. The Scouts took bankruptcy recently to get out from under a deluge of sexual abuse lawsuits.  They changed their name. They're not Boy Scouts anymore; they're just Scouts.  Girls can be Scouts too.

And that's a good thing.

But the Boy Scouts of my childhood was a noble organization. I learned to build a fire, sharpen a knife, and cook a meal over a campfire. And I learned the basic rules of gun safety.

America now has almost 400 million guns in private hands. Since there are only 330 million people in the U.S., there's a gun for everybody--even toddlers and infants.

Unfortunately, most of these gun owners weren't Boy Scouts in Oklahoma when they were children. That's a shame.

"Gentlemen, you may commence firing."

We're Number 1! LSU signs deal with Caesars Sportsbook to promote sports betting

 Is it just me, or have Louisiana State University's administrators lost their friggin' minds?

Last month, LSU announced it's teaming up with Caesars Sportsbook, a big-time gambling company, to promote sports betting.

Under the deal's terms, Caesars will get the naming rights to the Skyline Club at Tiger Stadium and can put its signs up in the football stadium, the basketball arena, and the baseball field. 

Will people be allowed to bet on sports inside LSU's football stadium? We don't know yet, but it's "one of many options being considered," an LSU official revealed.

Scott Woodward, LSU's athletic director, assures us that the gambling deal was brokered with the fans in mind: "LSU has always taken pride in providing fans with unique, innovative, and world-class experiences, and our new partnership with Caesars Entertainment will do just that," Woodward explained.

What lovely bullshit! But that's what we would expect from a guy who makes $1.2 million a year.

What about the students? Should a public university promote sports betting to impressionable youngsters?

Not to worry. Caesars promises not to market to students under the age of 21 or “highlight gaming offers inside campus facilities.”

That's a relief!

And, of course, some of the revenue from this gambling deal will go to student scholarships, which makes everything OK.

What's next? Will LSU open a brothel in the Skyline Club? Now that would be a "world-class" experience. Fans could drink, gamble, and fornicate to take their minds off LSU's abysmal football season.

And that would be fine because some of the prostitution revenue would surely be reserved for student scholarships.

Not that it's relevant, but LSU dropped 19 spots in the latest survey of top universities that U.S. News and World Report released last month.  LSU now ranks next to last among colleges in the Southeastern Conference. 

Who cares? LSU is the first SEC school to promote sports gambling, and that makes it number one in my book.

Bummer! You can't bet on LSU football in the Skyline Club.

Take this student loan and shove it: Will student debtors start making payments on their college loans when the government's payment holiday ends?

When we go on vacation, most of us sleep late, basking in the luxury of rising in the morning whenever we wish.

 Then our vacation ends, and we have to set our alarm clock again. And we find it damned difficult to pop out of bed at 6 AM to get to work on time.

 Something like that will happen when the U.S. Department of Education ends its pause on student loan payments. Student debtors enjoyed a grace period on their loan obligations during the COVID pandemic. They could skip their monthly student loan payments without penalty and spend that extra cash on other things—a new car, maybe.

 Millions of student borrowers benefited from this loan-payment holiday, but nobody knows how many will start making monthly payments again when the holiday comes to an end in February.

According to Politico, Education Department officials have instructed loan services to create a "safety net" for borrowers for the first three months after payment obligations begin:

 Borrowers who miss a payment during the initial 90-day period will not take a hit on their credit reports. Those borrowers will instead be automatically placed in a forbearance and be still considered current on their loans.

Student borrowers will appreciate the safety net, but will they start making their monthly loan payments again when the government's loan-payment pause finally ends?

Even before the pandemic, the default rate on student loans was considerably higher than the default rate on credit cards and car loans.

 And this pattern makes sense. Overburdened debtors who stop making car payments lose their cars. If they quit paying on their credit card balances, their cards get canceled.

 But if student-loan debtors stop making payments on their student loans, nothing happens--at least not immediately. 

 I predict that student loan defaults will spike upward this spring. Millions of student-loan debtors got permission to stop making payments in the spring of 2020, and they will find it challenging to start writing those monthly payments again, even when they are legally obligated to do so. 

To paraphrase a great country singer, I think many college debtors will take their cue from Johnny Paycheck and tell the Department of Education to take their student loans and shove 'em.

Vista College chain closes its campuses and files for bankruptcy in Delaware: Bankruptcy relief for me but not for thee

 Vista College, a chain of for-profit college campuses, closed and went bankrupt a few days ago.  Most Vista campuses are in Texas, but the chain filed its bankruptcy proceedings in Delaware.

Who owns Vista College?

 Education  Futures Group (EFG), a Chicago-based private equity firm, holds a majority interest.  Jim Tolbert, Vista's CEO, owns 16.7 percent.  

EFG's website describes Vista College as "one of the most popular and recognized institutions of higher education in the south-central United States."  Yup. Right up there with Rice, Tulane, and SMU.

Apparently, however, not everyone agrees with EFG's self puffery.  A Texas law firm filed a class-action suit against Vista seeking damages on behalf of approximately 3,000 former Vista students.

Will students get any money out of Vista? I kinda doubt it. I'm sure EFG's lawyers know how to structure a bankruptcy action so that none of Vista's owners will miss any meals.

Vista College is the latest in a string of for-profit schools to go belly up in recent years. As far as I'm concerned, the more for-profits that close, the better.

America doesn't really need a for-profit college sector. We already have a surplus of public and non-profit institutions. Vista's headquarters is in Richardson, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. The Dallas metropolitan area has 38 colleges. Vista has a campus in Beaumont, Texas, home of Lamar University. It also has a campus in El Paso, home of the University of Texas at El Paso, and a campus in College Station, home of Texas A & M.

The for-profits built a niche based on the pitch that they offered online courses for working adults, but that line of patter doesn't work anymore. Public institutions have invested heavily in online learning. Students can now get a bachelor's degree, a master's degree, and even a doctoral degree from a public university without ever going on campus. So why would anyone want to enroll at a for-profit college, which will likely cost more than a similar public school?

The for-profits also tout the fact they offer vocational training, which the public universities don't provide. But publicly funded community colleges now offer vocational and technical programs, and community colleges are cheaper than for-profit schools.

Delaware is a friendly venue for corporations, and I feel sure Vista and its owners will zip right through bankruptcy.  And I'm OK with that.

But many of Vista's former students will find themselves with a mountain of student-loan debt and no credential.  Can they file for bankruptcy in Delaware and get the same cozy treatment that bankrupt corporations get?

No, they cannot. Texas students can file an adversary proceeding in a Texas bankruptcy court in an effort to get their federal student loans discharged.

But lawyers for the Department of Education or one of its debt-collection agencies will show up to fight a bankruptcy discharge of student debt.

In other words, the bankruptcy process works better for for-profit colleges than it does for their students. For a for-profit college, bankruptcy is relatively painless. But a for-profit college student will find it virtually impossible to get free of student loans that were taken out to attend a for-profit college--even one that is owned by a private equity firm and goes bust in mid-semester.

Baylor University Loses Its Way: Low-Income Parents Take Out Loans So Their Kids Can Attend a Pricey School

Baylor University, a Baptist institution located in Waco, Texas, is a well-respected school. Over the years, it has risen steadily in the college ratings and now ranks among the top 100 American universities.

But Baylor is expensive--tuition and fees are about $50,000 a year. Low-income students can take out federal loans, but these loans are capped and do not cover the total cost of going to Baylor. 

So--according to the Wall Street Journal--Baylor has encouraged low-income families to take out Parent Plus loans. In fact, almost half the families that take out these loans are poor.

From Baylor's perspective, the Parent Plus program is a money tree. There is no cap on these loans, and Baylor gets its money upfront. If parents can't pay off these loans, that's their problem. 

As the Wall Street Journal revealed, many Baylor parents aren't paying back their Parent Plus loans. Only 28 percent paid down any of their loans after two years in repayment. In 2018 and 2019, Baylor parents collectively owed 74 percent of what they borrowed ten years after beginning repayment.

Baylor says it does not pressure families to take out Parent Plus loans. In a written statement, a Baylor spokesman said, "We have never strong-armed students to [make] a decision for/against Baylor, as we respect the significance of making a college choice." What the hell does that mean?

Linda Livingstone, Baylor's president, admits that Parent Plus loans are a problem. "My heart goes out to families that are in that situation," she said.  "We are working very, very hard to ensure that we don't see that so much going forward."

I'm not knocking Baylor. It's a fine school. But the fact remains that Baylor and many other universities are relying more and more on Parent Plus loans for their revenue. 

These loans bear a relatively high interest rate--6.28 percent, and they can be pretty large. Parents of 2018 and 2019 Baylor graduates borrowed a median amount of $59,000.  The Wall Street Journal reported that a school bus driver took out $57,000 in Parent Plus loans so her daughter could attend Baylor.

Low-income parents jeopardize their own financial security when they take out Parent Plus loans to finance their children's college education.  And Parent Plus loans, like student loans their children take out, are almost impossible to discharge in bankruptcy.

That's not right. Congress should shut down the Parent Plus program. 

Baylor president Linda Livingstone and spouse:
"My heart goes out to families that are in that situation."

No reply: What to do when the corporate office won't respond to your complaint

This happened once before

When I cam to your door

No reply

They said it wasn't you

But I saw you peep through your window

                                                                                                                        The Beatles 

Have you ever tried to resolve a dispute with a corporate entity: a bank, a car rental agency, a credit card company? How did it turn out? Most times--I'm guessing--you just gave up without getting your problem solved.

A couple of years ago, Chase Bank flagged a fraudulent transfer out of my checking account.  Three thousand dollars of my money slipped into the account of a stranger through Chase's Zelle digital payment network.

Chase admitted that the transfer was unauthorized and that I was not at fault. But it refused to return my money. The word came down from on high: Once money is transferred through Zelle, it cannot be recovered.

My wife and I happened to be Chase Private Clients at the time because we had some retirement savings with Chase. Made no difference. 

I emailed the Chase broker, who was supposedly handling my money. He called me on the phone and asked me not to communicate with him by email because it could cause him problems with the SEC.

I made numerous phone calls to Chase representatives, and I spoke to a different person every time I called. No satisfaction.

Then I switched tactics. I made a phone call to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. To my surprise, someone answered my phone, took my complaint, and assured me that Chase would be notified that same day.

Then I filed a complaint with the Federal Banking Commission and the Louisiana Banking Commission. I also discovered I could file a lawsuit against Chase in a Louisiana small claims court. The cost? Only $25, and I could file it electronically from my home computer.

I was typing up my lawsuit when a Chase representative from "Corporate" called.  His voice sounded like James Earl Jones--in other words--the voice of God.

"Mr. Fossey," he intoned in a deep, stentorian voice,  "we are going to return your money."

We all know that big, multinational corporations have insulated themselves from their customers. You simply can't get through to someone who has the authority to fix your problem.

Here's what you need to do:

1) Be dignified. Don't curse, yell, or threaten the human-robot you talk with on the phone. 

2) Be patient and persistent and keep records of your communications.

3) File complaints with any federal or state agency with regulatory authority over the corporation that is stonewalling you.

4) As a last resort, sue the offending party in small claims court. 

I haven't actually had to file a small claims suit against a corporate entity. So far, I have gotten my disputes settled through persistence. But I think it can be a handy tool for confronting a recalcitrant corporation.

You can represent yourself in small claims court. You don't need a lawyer. And in Louisiana, you can sue a corporation doing business in the state through the Secretary of State's Office. Your state probably has a similar process for getting service on corporations.

Our soulless corporations get more greedy, more arrogant, and more indifferent to their customers with each passing day. If you get stiffed by one, you should fight back.

"Mr. Fossey, thou shall get thy money back."