As the economy spirals downward,take charge of your mental health

Let us pause in life's pleasures and count its many tears

While we all sup sorrow with the poor

Hard Times

Stephen Foster (1854)

Make no mistake. America is spiraling downward toward a major Depression. Seventeen million people have already lost their jobs, and the unemployment rate will undoubtedly rise later in the year. Many unemployed people won't be able to pay their rent or make their mortgage payments.   Laid-off workers who had employer-provided health insurance will lose it and find they can't afford to pay for it themselves.

Financial stress has mental-health consequences and people who have suffered financial setbacks will be understandably depressed.  Thus, if you are one of the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs or a substantial part of their retirement savings, you need to pay close attention to your own mental health.

First, if you find yourself slipping into clinical depression, let your doctor know. Depression is a fairly common malady and is treatable. Your family physician can prescribe an antidepressant that can alleviate this medical condition.

Second, get some physical exercise, but don't overdo it. You don't need to run a marathon to get the benefits of physical activity. Just take a walk or ride your bicycle. Exercise is a proven way to reduce stress and depression, and relief is usually immediate.

Third, pay attention to what you eat. If you are down on your luck and scraping by on unemployment checks and food stamps, you may need to cut your food budget. But try to continue eating foods that you enjoy.  A good meal, especially a meal shared with family and friends, helps relieve depression.

If you are pinching pennies, you will probably stop eating in restaurants. But you can buy a cheap grill and broil hotdogs in the backyard.  You can also learn to cook inexpensive food so that it tastes delicious. I once swore I would never eat collard greens, but my wife cooks them so well that greens taste like a gourmet dish. 

Fourth, don't neglect relaxation. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, people went to the movies, which provided cheap entertainment. Today, a movie, a soda, and some popcorn will set you back about fifteen bucks.

But a Netflix subscription doesn't cost much, and you can see a new movie every night of the week. Don't cancel that subscription to cut costs unless you are desperate.

Fifth, take up a hobby.  If you are poor, you will probably not take up golf or skiing. But you can plant a small garden, even if it is nothing more than a potted tomato plant by your back door. You will find it immensely satisfying to grow and eat vegetables you grew yourself.

Finally, remember that the financial hardship you are experiencing is not your fault. You are the victim of twin evils: corporate greed and the coronavirus. 

If you've been laid off precipitously, told to clean out your desk, and walked to your car by a security officer, you have not lost your human dignity or the capacity to live a rewarding life. Do everything you can to take care of yourself and your family, and remember to manage your mental health.

Bait and Switch: In response to the coronavirsus pandemic, colleges shifted to online instruction. Students aren't happy

According to Investopedia, "Bait and switch is a morally suspect sales tactic that lures customers in with specific claims about quality or low prices . . ." However, once customers are lured in,  "the advertised deal does not exist, or is of far inferior quality or specifications, where the buyer is then presented with an upsell."

When the universities shut down last month in response to the coronavirus pandemic, they sent their students home and partially refunded dorm fees they had collected from students living on campus. They also shifted all face-to-face teaching to online instruction while continuing to charge full tuition.

In essence, the universities engaged in bait and switch. They promised a classroom learning experience, but they substituted an inferior product--cobbled together online classes.

 But many students weren't happy with the change. In their view, online teaching is an inferior product.

Inside Higher Ed told the story of Arica Kincheloe, who took out $50,000 in student loans to enroll in a one-year accelerated program in social service administration at the University of Chicago.
Like most higher education institutions, the University of Chicago canceled on-campus classes and directed faculty to shift to a distance-learning format.

But Kincheloe believes she has been shortchanged. "It's a throwaway--a shortened quarter," she said. "I do not feel like I am getting the same education that I would have otherwise."

Other University of Chicago students agree with Kincheloe.  Fifteen hundred students signed a petition calling for a 50 percent reduction in tuition, and 850 students formed a group that is threatening to withhold their tuition payments.

UChicago administrators don't see a problem with the change. Administrators say students will get full credit toward their degrees even though the instruction has been modified. Therefore, the university will continue charging students full tuition.

The University of Chicago probably considers this controversy a temporary annoyance. All this may blow over if the university returns to traditional on-campus teaching this fall.

But I doubt it.

Private colleges have justified extortionary tuition by arguing that a student's on-campus experience--both curricular and extracurricular--is superior.  Those ivy-covered buildings, those cerebral tweed-coated professors, networking opportunities to mingle with rich people--the elite universities claim the whole package justifies charging tuition as high as $60,000 a year.

But if students are sitting at home taking classes that are little more than correspondence courses, then they might as well go to a less expensive state university.

Likewise, HBCUs are going to have difficulty justifying their existence if their instruction moves to a distance-learning format. As Pearl K. Dowe argued in a recent essay, the survivability of HBCUs "has always been rooted in their commitment to serve, educate and advance Black students in a [physical]space that is edifying, nurturing and empowering." So why would Black students enroll at an HBCU if they're taking their classes online?


I'm not saying the universities intentionally engaged in bait and switch. The pandemic forced them to suspend traditional classroom teaching. But they know that their hastily put-together online classes are a cheap substitute for face-to-face interaction with professors. In fact, many universities have gone to pass/fail grading for online instruction--an implicit admission that this mode of teaching is inferior.

I agree with the University of Chicago students.  The online instruction they are getting is not what they bargained for and is a shoddy substitute. The University of Chicago should slash tuition for the spring semester by 50 percent.

Online instruction is a shoddy substitute for classroom teaching.

Fighting for milk: Now is the time to take any kind of work you can get

In the movie Cinderella Man, Russell Crowe plays the part of James J. Braddock, a professional boxer who breaks his hand in the ring, forcing him to leave his chosen profession and work as a common laborer. Then the Depression comes, and Braddock's family faces starvation. Braddock returns to boxing with ferocious intensity and winds up winning the World Heavyweight Championship.

In the movie, a reporter asks Braddock to explain why he had become a better boxer. Braddock answered that he was a better boxer because he had discovered what he was fighting for.  And what was that, the reporter asked?

"Milk," Braddock replied.

Washington Post columnist Michelle Singletary made a similar point to people who have been laid off or furloughed from their jobs.  "Apply for any kind of work," she advised. Despite the economic downturn, some companies are still hiring, and all jobs bring in at least some money.

There was a time when experts advised people not to take menial jobs if they had been laid off from a professional position. A stint as a restaurant worker does not look good on the resume of someone who applies for a job as a financial analyst.

Also, many employers are reluctant to hire people who appear to be overqualified for the jobs they are seeking. Unemployed lawyers, for example, have difficulty getting employed as paralegals because the law firms believe that a licensed attorney working as a paraprofessional will be perpetually dissatisfied.

But these are desperate times, and they are becoming more desperate. If you have a home and a family, it makes sense to take any kind of work at all--any money you earn helps protect what is important to you.

After all, as the cinematic version of James Braddock showed us, working for milk is a dignified occupation.

Russell Crow as James J. Braddock: Working for milk

Joe Biden's student-loan forgiveness is seriously flawed, but it is a step in the right direction

Joe Biden announced his plan for student-loan forgiveness in a Medium commentary posted a few days ago.  He proposes to forgive all federal student loans for persons who earn up to $125,000 a year and who acquired their loans to attend a community college, a public college or university, or an HBCU (historically black college or university).

Biden's debt forgiveness plan is a step in the right direction, but it is seriously flawed.

First, Biden's plan does nothing for people who racked up student debt to attend for-profit colleges. We've known for a long time that the for-profit college industry has preyed on disadvantaged populations--people from low-income families, minorities, and first-generation college attendees.  On average, students leave their for-profit institutions with more debt than they would have acquired had they attended a public university.

So why not extended student-loan forgiveness to people who took out loans to attend a for-profit institution?

Second, student debtors who enrolled at private universities get no relief under Biden's plan unless they attended a private HBCU. This makes no sense to me at all.

Why should students who studied at Xavier University, a Catholic university in New Orleans, get debt forgiveness, while students who attended Loyola University, another New Orleans Catholic school, receive no relief at all? Are students who attended HBCUs more worthy of assistance than students who attended other colleges and universities? I don't think so.

Finally, Vice President Biden's proposal gives no relief to people who took out private student loans. Let's remember the fact that the so-called Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2005 explicitly made private student-loans virtually nondischargeable in bankruptcy.  Then-Senator Biden supported that bill and voted for it.

Why should a student who took out student loans from Wells Fargo or Sallie Mae be denied debt relief while students who took out federal loans get their student debt completely wiped out?

I support any legislation that brings assistance to overburdened student debtors--including plans proposed by Senator Sanders, Senator Elizabeth Warren, and former VP Biden.  So Biden's plan, imperfect as it is, has my support.

But wouldn't be simpler and fairer to amend the Bankruptcy Code and allow beaten down debtors to shed their student loans in bankruptcy like any other nonsecured consumer debt--regardless of where they went to college?

After all, the bankruptcy judges have the authority and the expertise to reject bankruptcy claims that are fraudulent or brought by people who have the financial means to pay back their lawful debts.

In my view, Biden's student loan relief plan is not well thought out. If implemented, it will ignite bitter resentment from people who are burdened by college loans taken out to attend private universities or for-profit colleges. And it will undoubtedly offend people who took out private student loans that are nondischargeable in bankruptcy because of a law Joe Biden helped enact back in 2005.

Joe Biden wants to forgive your student loans if you attended this Catholic university but not if you attended another Catholic school located in the same city.

"If I were a carpenter": Manual skills will be more valuable than a liberal arts degree in the post-coronavirus economy

If I were a carpenter, and you were a lady

Would you marry me anyway?

Would you have my baby?

Tim Hardin

Sung best by Johnny Cash and June Carter

James Howard Kunstler wrote somewhere that in the coming age, carpenters will be more valued than people who design video games (or words to that effect). Kunstler's observation worried me because I have no mechanical skills at all, although I am a pretty good gardener.

Kunstler is right, and the coming age is now. Coronavirus is transforming the American economy. Millions of jobs have been lost that won't come back. All of a sudden, it matters if a person has real skills. A carpenter is going to be more valued in the years ahead than a sociology professor.

Americans have indulged themselves in the acquisition of meaningless university degrees--hundreds of thousands of degrees, and they will soon learn that all the millions of hours spent in university classrooms won't help them feed themselves.

I should know. I have been a university professor for 25 years, and I sat on dozens of dissertation committees. I would be embarrassed to list the titles of some of the dissertations I approved.  I remember one doctoral student at the University of Houston who wrote his thesis on what it felt like to be a graduate student.  I feel sure he is a tenured professor at some obscure regional university.

During my years in the Alice and Wonderland world of higher education, I stumbled across several instances of plagiarism. No plagiarist I discovered was ever kicked out of graduate school.  We treated plagiarism like a punctuation error--easily corrected.

All this foolishness was financed by the federal student-loan program, the Pell Grant program, and various forms of state and federal government support. And most of the people who acquired frothy university degrees got jobs--often soft-skill jobs in the public sector.  But few people who collected these degrees learned how to make anything useful.

Of course, not all higher education is vacuous. Programs in engineering, the medical profession, law, and accounting all teach useful skills. And several of my colleagues in my own field, which is education, are excellent scholars and dedicated teachers. I cast no aspersions on their work. But in general, the fields of education, liberal arts, and social studies offer degrees that lack real substance.

As I write this, nearly 17 million Americans are out of work, and this is just the first wave of job losses. Before the end of this year, people in government and education are going to feel the cold breath of a new Depression.  Experts reasonably predict that the unemployment rate in this country will reach 30 percent.

The world of higher education is in for a rude shock. Slovenly professors, who did very little work and made rare appearances on campus dressed in gym clothes, are going to lose their cushy sinecures.  If they are smart, they will acquire a craft skill and retool themselves as carpenters, plumbers, electricians, or technical workers.

As the job market for college professors collapses--and it will collapse, few laid-off professors are going to find new positions in academia. So If they don't retool, they will be forced on the dole, subsisting on food stamps and living with someone who has a real job.  

As for the people who took out student loans to get frivolous degrees, they are going to find it damned difficult to get a decent job and even more challenging to pay off their student debt. They, too, will need to master a useful skill if they aspire to own a home, get married, or have children.

Things are falling apart for American higher education: It is time to be cautious about taking out student loans

Things are falling apart for many American colleges and universities. The signs of stress and turmoil are everywhere.

First, college enrollments are down significantly, putting an enormous strain on colleges that are heavily dependent on tuition revenue. Over the past decade, college enrollment dropped by more than 2 million students, dipping below 18 million students in the fall of 2019.

Second, the for-profit college industry is on the verge of collapse. According to Forbes, the number of for-profit institutions declined by 25 percent between 2010 and 2018, and total enrollment dropped by half.

Third, private nonprofit colleges are closing at an accelerating rate. An analysis in The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that more than 50 small private colleges have closed since 2016.  Already this year, MacMurray College and Nebraska Christian College have announced they are shutting down.  And Notre Dame de Namur University stated that it will not enroll a first-year class this fall. 

Fourth, small liberal arts colleges are slashing tuition for their first-year classes by 50 percent. Although most small colleges post a very high sticker price, in reality, they are giving out financial aid and scholarships like candy. As a result, the average net cost of tuition is only half the posted price.

Fifth, business schools and law schools have rolled out new types of graduate degrees to counteract declining enrollment.  Business schools have introduced one-year MBA degrees because the demand for traditional two-year programs has dropped. And law schools have started offering law-based degrees for people who do not intend to practice law. According to numbers released by the American Bar Association, 14 percent of law school students were in non-JD programs in 2018.

Sixth, the coronavirus crisis has caused some college students to feel less positively about their educational experience.  The COVID-19 pandemic forced the vast majority of colleges to cancel face-to-face classes this spring and replace them with online instruction.  Unfortunately, the quality of online teaching has often not been good.  A recent survey found that 63 percent of undergraduate respondents reported that the quality of their online instruction was "worse" or "a lot worse" than the live teaching they received before the pandemic.

More than 40 percent of the undergraduate respondents said that their view of their college had gotten worse as a result of COVID-19. And one out of 10 high school seniors who had intended to enroll in a 4-year college this fall said their plans will likely change. 

Seventh, student debt has doubled from $750 billion in 2010 to $.15 trillion in 2019. Today, 45 million Americans hold student loan debt.  More than one million people defaulted on their student loans last year. Almost 9 million more are shackled by long-term, income-based repayment plans that can last as long as 20 or 25 years. 

Conclusion: Students should do everything possible to avoid taking out student loans

For three decades, colleges and universities raised tuition on an annual basis at twice the national inflation rate. College students financed the rising cost of their education by taking out larger and larger student loans.

College leaders assured students they were getting good value for their tuition dollars. After all, they purred soothingly, salaries for college graduates vastly exceed the wages of people without college degrees. Taking out student loans to get a college degree seemed like a smart investment.

In fact, inflation-adjusted salaries for American workers have remained flat for the last 40 years. "[T]today's average hourly wage has just about the same purchasing power it did in 1978." The wage gap between college graduates and non-college graduates has widened, but this is mostly because wages for non-college graduates have declined.

In other words, a college degree may be a good investment for most Americans. Still, it may not be as good as the colleges have represented.  People who take on enormous student debt to get liberal arts degrees or graduate degrees will find that their college education was a terrible investment if they do not land a good job.

The coronavirus pandemic has put millions of Americans out of a job. Experts predict an unemployment rate of more than 30 percent—higher than during the Great Depression of the 1930s.  Forty million Americans may be out of a job by the end of this year.

Our economy will bounce back, but who knows when that will be? So if you are thinking about going to college or graduate school, let me give you a little advice:

Now is not the time to take out massive student loans to finance a bachelor's degree in gender studies from an expensive private college.

Now is not the time to finance a luxury apartment with your student loan checks.

And now is not the time to thoughtlessly take out loans to enroll in a master's degree program without a clear sense of how that program will increase your income. 

It is a terrible thing to be unemployed—as millions of Americans will soon be. But it is far worse to be unemployed and burdened with student loans that you will never be able to repay.

"Seeing poor white people makes me happy": Should you take out student loans to attend SUNY Old Westbury?

Do you remember Associate Professor Nicholas Powers, who made the national news a while back for posting an online essay titled "Seeing poor white people makes me happy"?

According to the New York Post, Powers penned an essay in which he wrote that "White people begging us for food feels like justice . . . it feels like a Black Nationalist wet dream."

Professor Powers is a tenured professor at SUNY Old Westbury, a public university in the state of New York. He makes $82,122 a year, plus benefits, which undoubtedly includes excellent health insurance and a pension plan.

And yet he rails against poor white people.  Describing his reaction to seeing a homeless white man in a black neighborhood, Powers wrote, "Should I kick him in the face? Hard?" Also describing his emotions about seeing a white homeless man, he wrote: "Today I own my anger. I want to snatch his food and say, 'Go beg in a white neighborhood!' And eat it. And rub my belly. And laugh."

So what does it cost to attend SUNY Old Westbury, where Professor Powers teaches in the English Department?  For in-state students, it cost about  $24,000 for tuition, fees, room, and board. That's roughly $100,000 for a four-year degree.

America has plunged into a deep economic Depression. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the unemployment rate may hit 32 percent--higher than during the 1930s.  Young people who are in college now need to keep their expenses down and study a subject that will lead to a good job.

So if you are a young New York college student, ask yourself this question. Does it make sense to take out student loans to attend SUNY Old Westbury and take classes from Professor Powers? I don't think so.

On the other hand, if you borrow money to get a degree from SUNY Old Westbury and can't get a job, you shouldn't worry. You can always sign up for a 25-year, income-based repayment plan to service your student loans.

That plan will terminate when you are in your fifties. By that time, Professor Powers will probably be retired and living on his generous New York state pension, a pension you will help pay for with your taxes.

Professor Nicholas Powers: "Seeing poor white people makes me happy."

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