higher education

Just a few highlights of things that reference the Millennial Generation. Read the whole thing here

• "most daunting challenge can be the cost of college. At a time when Americans owe more in tuition debt than credit card debt"
• "Congress needs to stop the interest rates on student loans from doubling in July"
• "Higher education can’t be a luxury – it’s an economic imperative that every family in America should be able to afford"
• "states also need to do their part, by making higher education a higher priority in their budgets"
• "After all, innovation is what America has always been abt Most new jobs are created in start-ups and small businesses" - true, many by youth

OWS

• "And we've put in place new rules to hold Wall Street accountable, so a crisis like that never happens again."
• "And I will not go back to the days when Wall Street was allowed to play by its own set of rules. The new rules we passed restore what should be any financial system’s core purpose: Getting funding to entrepreneurs with the best ideas, and getting loans to responsible families who want to buy a home, start a business, or send a kid to college.
• So if you're a big bank or financial institution, you are no longer allowed to make risky bets with your customers' deposits. You’re required to write out a "living will" that details exactly how you’ll pay the bills if you fail -- because the rest of us aren’t bailing you out ever again. And if you’re a mortgage lender or a payday lender or a credit card company, the days of signing people up for products they can't afford with confusing forms and deceptive practices are over. Today, American consumers finally have a watchdog in Richard Cordray with one job: To look out for them."

In response, the PIRGs put out a release regarding the impact of the President's speech and potential legislation on higher education:

"“In this economy, we cannot double the student loan interest rate. Without a new plan, millions of students will pay a crushing $5,200 more on their student loan than they otherwise would,” said Rich Williams, Higher Education Advocate for US PIRG. “Students are already weighed down by state budget cuts, struggling family finances and uncertain job prospects. We applaud President Obama for his proposal to keep student loan interest rates low.”

If Congress does nothing, borrowers who will takeout the maximum $23,000 in subsidized student loans will see their interest balloon to an additional $5,200 over a 10-year repayment period and $11,300 over a 20-year repayment period.

In addition to loans, many students work their way through college to keep their debt burden low. However more full time students are becoming full time workers. With the economic down turn, it is getting harder for those students to find and continue employment. Doubling the amount of work-study jobs, as proposed by the President, will help support needy students willing to work hard make it to graduation."

Here is a chart (PDF) from the PIRGs on how students would be impacted if the interest rate on student loans doubled in July.

It's not every day we report on a campus newspaper editorial here, but sometimes one is problematic enough to require a response.

The Georgetown student newspaper -- the Hoya -- published a disappointing editorial today, calling for the disempowerment of students while arguing that national leaders should be left to continue their assault on our generation.

...Student body presidents are elected to represent their peers in campus-specific proposals that are designed to make college life easier. National political representation, however, should be left to the congressmen and senators that many of those two million-plus college students elect of their own free will.

The campaign, which kicked off August 2, claimed to represent "our generation," but what it became was a grandstanding gesture by student leaders who saw a publicity opening. They got what they wanted: endless web, newspaper and television press, including buzz over a conference call with President Obama. The coalition expanded quickly, not because the student body presidents were being urged by their respective constituents to mobilize, but because they found company in their equally ambitious counterparts at other universities.

But in the end, what was actually accomplished? Elected campus leaders may have written a letter and filled the Twitter feeds of Congressmen with the now famous hashtag, but students did not march en masse in the streets of Washington. Student body presidents did not compel their peers to action by coordinating a phone-a-thon to congressional leaders. Nor did they solicit the cooperation of the College Republicans or College Democrats, two political forces on campus who may have been better equipped to take on Capitol Hill during the debt crisis.

While we understand GUSA's good intentions, it is important they remember their place as representatives of Georgetown students to the administration, not to politicians. GUSA executive representatives did not advertise a political campaign when they were running back in February. While Healy Hall and Capitol Hill were designed to mirror each other across Washington, GUSA leaders should stick to leading who they were elected to lead — our student body.

The editorial board disapproved of their fellow Georgetown student, student body president Mike Meaney, organizing a coalition of national student government presidents. The campaign--"Do We Have a Deal Yet"--was created to pressure Congress to stop bickering during the debt ceiling debate/budget crisis and to strike a deal with the next generation in mind, not the next election. It seems that the editorial board would have rather seen more of a focus on campus-specific matters than on "grandstanding gestures" protesting policies and discussions that ostensibly have no direct relevance to Georgetown students' lives.

Of course, the discussions and eventual compromise--if one could call it that--absolutely impacts the quality of life of each college student. For example, did you know that part of the ceiling deal takes money out of the pockets of loan-paying students? Grad students--used to being able to attend class without worrying about interest accruing on their loans--now find that reality taken away. Students who made 12 consecutive payments on their loans in a timely fashion used to be rewarded with a credit. As of July 1, 2012, that no longer exists.

Yes, these issues are made abstract and mind-numbing by the media, which generally aren't capable of facilitating a meaningful, substantive discussion on issues. And a system of higher education, resting on a bunch of siloed departments and divisions unwilling to cooperate, doesn't exactly serve as the best socializing force. Mix those together with an inability to see healthy conflict and a distaste for anything containing the word "politics," and we get the editorial quoted above, which surely represents something close to the views of many students.

What's sad is that this view--that officeholders are the experts and that students' roles are to merely take space on college campuses and exclusively agonize about matters like campus pub closures--is misguided at best and simply unaffordable right now given the problems we all face. Yes--there are problems on our campuses that student governments were elected to solve. But any student government with which I've affiliated is tasked with the responsibility of improving the lives of the students they represent. There is no such thing as a "campus bubble."

Various cultural, economic, and social forces infiltrate campus confines every second of every day. In taking on the task of representing students, student government representatives are obligated to lobby their local, state, and federal governments. Because politics is everywhere, the reality is that everyone is a politician, navigating various systems of power whether they like it or not--even the student journalists writing the editorial.

While compartmentalizing these systems would simplify the job of covering their campus, unfortunately things in the "real world" aren't that cut and dry. Yes, students are citizens of their campus and should have a say on something like a campus pub being slated to close. But students are also citizens of the town, state, country, and planet in which their campus is located. Policies passed at various levels of society impact the student experience, thereby creating a need for any elected student representative to serve as an advocate on and off campus; it also creates a need for student journalists to help their peers understand these impacts. Even though it might make these journalists' jobs a bit more complicated, that's what we need.

Students and young people are marginalized enough in our society; we don't need to do it to ourselves. If it were up to the Hoya editorial board, young people would go back to the kids' table and mind our p's and q's. We can't afford to take that approach any longer, however. The college student body presidents should be commended for 1.) observing the impact the debt discussion has on our generation--their campuses included--and 2.) for speaking out against the process. If anything, these student leaders had the opportunity to, and could have done more to stand up for their constituents, including broadening the number of participants to include the constituents themselves. I hope this collaborative activism continues and intensifies, and I hope to see the Hoya and other student newspapers cover it as they should.

Maria Kefalas has written an interesting post at The Atlantic. She begins by relaying a phenomenon she heard immigration scholar Frank Bean discuss, pointing out the decrease in the number of native-born men who have completed the 12th grade while also noting the increase in the number of men enrolling in post-secondary education. Kefalas and Bean posit that immigrant men--mainly from Mexico--account for the discrepancy. On the ladder of social mobility, both black and white native men from the working class are going head-to-head at an increasing rate with the immigrant men, and the latter group is winning.

Why? Kefalas explains:

In this competition, immigrant men have the edge, not simply because they take lower wages and don't have union protection, but also because, as a group, they have lower rates of criminality and drug abuse--and that may become even more true as today's out-of-work blue collar workers remain out of work for a year or two or more. So as more and more native high-school-educated workers find themselves unemployed (and possibly become unemployable), Bean speculates that immigrant workers may fill the gap, and get many of the blue collar jobs that return, as we recover.

Kefalas, while noting her support of immigration and its societal benefits (which I also share), goes on to raise a concern regarding what this means for young native men who, out of options, look for some way to express their frustrations. The consequences of a large, downtrodden segment of the population recognizing their impotence would probably have enormously detrimental--possibly destructive--effects on society, especially when other complicating factors like race, ethnicity, and generational dynamics are thrown in (cue the footage of the London riots).

Kefalas sees the notion of "college-for-everyone" as a pipe dream doing a disservice to this group of native men; even as someone working in higher education, I tend to agree that college is not for everyone. Yet, school systems today won't hear any of this. Kefalas proposes her own solution.

Americans hate the idea of educational tracking, and I'm not proposing is a system that would give teachers and administrators all the power to determine a teenager's educational trajectory. But right now the only tracks are "college" or "bust." We need to provide alternative pathways for high school students, including those that would mix classroom learning with apprenticeship and applied-skill training.

What would be wrong with creating a system that honors a young person's dreams but also respects the practical concerns of a kid's abilities and talents? What purpose does it serve to tell a kid graduating from high school who tests below 9th-grade levels in math and English that he or she should head off to college to become a doctor?

No other system in the developed world would allow such a thing to happen. It wastes people's time, money, and resources. And it is soul-destroying for the young people who endure it. Foundations and philanthropists should be looking to programs like those in Germany where kids can finish the equivalent of high school (for free) with the training to enter the full-time labor force in a good job. Here, high school graduates end up in community colleges only to languish in remedial courses when they could be in trade and vocational programs preparing them for work that is respected, well-paying, and secure.

I mostly agree with Kefalas' proposal. I do believe that our educational system does a relatively poor job of preparing students for a variety of options not including college. One report from 2006, called "The Silent Epidemic: Perspectives of High School Dropouts" and released by Civic Enterprises in association with Peter D. Hart and Associates for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, cited a handful of reasons why high school students drop out. Two of the reasons are particularly interesting when thinking about the dilemma of young native men discussed above:

• Nearly half (47 percent) said a major reason for dropping out was that classes were not interesting. These young people reported being bored and disengaged from high school. Almost as many (42 percent) spent time with people who were not interested in school. These were among the top reasons selected by those with high GPAs and by those who said they were motivated to work hard.
• Nearly 7 in 10 respondents (69 percent) said they were not motivated or inspired to work hard, 80 percent did one hour or less of homework each day in high school, two-thirds would have worked harder if more was demanded of them (higher academic standards and more studying and homework), and 70 percent were confident they could have graduated if they had tried. Even a majority of those with low GPAs thought they could have graduated.

In addition to agreeing with Kefalas that more educational "tracks" may be needed, the statistics above also leave me wondering if part of the problem lies with the staffing of junior high and high school teachers. Are we hiring teachers whose experiences connect with these students? Are we providing educational experiences that match a variety of students' backgrounds, situating the learning in their worlds, or are we shoving the cliched square peg through the round hole in the name of efficiency and standardized testing? Granted, The Silent Epidemic statistics represent the experiences of both men and women, but they still hint that many of those young men leaving school experience significant boredom with their education. They, and we, deserve better.

Editor's note: This post originally appeared on Idealist.org. It has been republished here with permission from the author and Idealist.org.

Guest blogger Heather Jarvis provides education and training “for student loan borrowers and the people who love them.” Here she sums up what college students, recent graduates, and folks considering grad school need to know about the debt ceiling deal.

Last week the House and Senate passed the Budget Control Act of 2011 [PDF] just ahead of the deadline, and President Obama has signed the act into law. Key student aid programs are largely intact, and I am relieved to report that the new law avoids some of the proposed cuts that would have hurt students the most.

There are three main provisions in the debt ceiling deal related to higher education:

• Funding is provided for the Pell Grant program.
• The in-school loan interest subsidy for graduate and professional students is eliminated beginning July 1, 2012.
• "Repayment incentives," or cost reductions earned by certain borrowers, are eliminated for loans disbursed on or after July 1, 2012.

Now for some Q&A…

Q. Students shoulder $4.6 billion of the deficit reduction (so far)?! How is that possible?

The elimination of the graduate and professional interest subsidy and the loan repayment incentives are estimated by the Congressional Budget Office to produce a savings of $21.6 billion. $17 billion of that savings will go to shore up the Pell Grant program, and $4.6 billion will be used to reduce the deficit. Read on for more details about all of these changes.

Q. I have student loans. What steps should I take?

• Always borrow federal student loans first and only consider more expensive private student loans if you must.
• If you are still in school and you can afford it, consider paying student loan interest as it accrues.  You’ll lower your costs over time.
• Choose the repayment plan that makes the most sense for you. Income-Based Repayment (IBR) is a good option for people with low income compared to their student loan debt.
• Pay off your most expensive loans first.
• Find out if Public Service Loan Forgiveness can help.

Q. Is my Pell Grant safe?

Pell Grants are safe for now; the White House indicates that the funding will be sufficient to keep them at their current level of $5,500. If they  had been cut, students may well have had to increase their reliance on student loans. Thankfully, the Budget Control Act shores up the Pell Grant program by providing $17 billion in funding over the next two fiscal years. However, with spending cuts anticipated in the future, Pell Grants remain at risk.

Q. What should graduate and professional students expect?

Graduate and professional students will pay more for student loans. The Budget Control Act eliminates the in-school interest subsidy for graduate and professional students, so these folks will pay more interest over time.  However, it does not eliminate the interest subsidy for undergraduate borrowers.

Subsidized Stafford Loans have historically been available to both undergraduate and graduate borrowers with demonstrated financial need.  In the case of Subsidized Loans, the government pays the interest that accrues on the loan while the student is in college.  Without the subsidy, students must themselves pay the accruing interest as they go, or have the unpaid interest added to the principle amount of their loan and pay it later.

(Ed. note: You can learn more about financial aid on Idealist.org's financing your graduate education page.)

Q. What about repayment incentives?

To encourage borrowers to repay on time, the Department of Education was previously authorized to provide certain incentives, including an origination fee rebate and interest rate reduction.  Borrowers would earn these benefits by making on-time payments over 12 months.  Beginning on July 1, 2012, the Department of Education is no longer authorized to provide these repayment incentives, but may continue to allow an interest rate reduction for borrowers who enroll in payment by automatic electronic debit.

Q. Is it possible that there will be even more cuts to student aid?

Yes. The Budget Control Act requires Congress to come up with a lot more deficit reduction by Thanksgiving.  Additional spending cuts may come in part from higher education. Stay tuned…

—

About the author:

Former capital defense attorney and long-time public service advocate Heather Jarvis dedicates herself to helping students make informed decisions about their student loans. Since 2005, Heather has helped more than an estimated 25,000 students understand and overcome college debt through in-person and online trainings and resources. As Senior Program Manager for Advocacy and Outreach at Equal Justice Works, Heather played a role in the passage of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act, which made IBR and Public Service Loan Forgiveness a reality.

Want to learn more about Public Service Loan Forgiveness?  Register for one of Heather’s popular free webinars and get the scoop.  Heather provides free tools and information for student loan borrowers and the people who love them at www.askheatherjarvis.com.

Over the last few years, publications like Mother Jones and the New York Times magazine both have exposed us to the sugar daddy/baby phenomenon. Wealthy older men -- some married, some not -- plop their money down to entice young women to spend time with them, often with expectations of sexual activity.

However, as our economy has spiraled even further out of control, this activity is picking up steam. This past week we learned from the Huffington Post that the phenomenon has overlapped with the student debt crisis. The story describes several relationships borne out of economic strife and the desperation that accompanies the racking up of large amounts of debt to finance one's education. It also reveals that the increasing popularity of matchmaking sites like seekingarrangement.com have aided the sugar daddy/baby boom.

The Huffington Post piece spurred Bill Maher and his panel to discuss the issue last night.

The first thing that strikes me about this conversation is that it happened. We are so often saturated with positive portrayals of capitalism and what that economic system does for us (that whole American Dream thing) that when we hear personal accounts of the desperation it's wrought, our society -- particularly the establishment -- acts like it's some curious, extraordinary event. Now that the street economy is impacting elite college students, it's suddenly real and they are taken aback.

The second thing I am thinking about is the whole notion that American youth -- and Bourdain specifically mentions this at 5:15 -- just don't want to do jobs that they perceive as being below them. This narrative has been around a while, and it might be true of a certain demographic. But we're forgetting that most youth are in such a poor economic position right now that they simply can't live or survive on these jobs because they don't pay enough. And when there is a small number of other, barely better-paying jobs with benefits that are available, youth will hold out for those, even if they appear as a mirage on the horizon. And especially if they have the student debt that is simply no match for the low wage, no-health care jobs.

So, actually, the question Bourdain poses is unfair. "Why won't young people take jobs that are below them," should be rephrased: "Why won't young people take jobs that don't pay them enough?"

The question answers itself.

The sugar daddy/sugar baby phenomenon goes back to the need for (and absence of) well-paying jobs for young people. Imagine that.

This whole debt ceiling mess, critical in its own right, is also obscuring fights for other priorities as the budget fight for FY12 heats up.

One such priority is international education. NAFSA CEO and Executive Director Marlene M. Johnson last week sent letters to influential members of Congress reminding them of the importance of global learning and engagement as a part of the national recovery from the recession. Here is a summary of the messages sent to various subcommittees on behalf of NAFSA and the students and educators it represents:

• Subcommittee: Labor, Health, Human Services, Education & Related Agencies: NAFSA urged the subcommittee to provide adequate funding for programs that provide financial aid and support services for low-income, minority, and first-generation college students. These programs include Pell grants, Supplemental Education Opportunity Grants, and TRIO. NAFSA also asked the subcommittee to fund the Department of Education’s international and foreign language programs at President Obama’s FY12 budget request of $125.881 million, the same level of funding these programs received in FY2010. The Department’s FY12 budget proposal includes objectives for these programs to better support students at underserved institutions and provide more teacher training, objectives NAFSA strongly supports. NAFSA spoke out on behalf of the President’s request for funding for the First in the World program, which would support institutions taking innovative steps to increase college graduation rates and replace FIPSE (the Fund to Improve Postsecondary Education).
• Subcommittee: State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs: NAFSA urged the subcommittee to make a strong investment in educational exchange programs such as Fulbright by approving funding at the President’s FY12 budget request of $637.1 million. NAFSA also highlighted the need for robust funding for the Department of State’s Bureau of Consular Affairs, urging funding at the President’s budget request of $7.6 billion. NAFSA made note of the importance of the Peace Corps, urging support for this innovative and critical public diplomacy program at the President’s request of $439.6 million.
• Subcommittee: Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies: NAFSA urged support for the Administration’s requested budget for FY12 to support the International Trade Administration’s U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service, which actively promotes U.S. higher education in other countries as part of its mission to advance U.S. exports.

Once we get past this debt crisis and (hopefully) stabilize the fiscal health of the United States, President Obama has indicated he is interested in making investments to strengthen the country, including many of those mentioned above. Here's hoping members of Congress understand the importance of investing in these programs. From the Fulbright program and Foreign Commercial Service to the Peace Corps, Congress needs to affirm its support for America's students and the programs that allow them to succeed here and abroad.

Here's whats up today:

• 40 years ago 18 year olds got the right to vote - Craig will have a piece today detailing all of the reasons for this. But if you're on Twitter today participate in Youth Vote Overseas's twitter campaign asking people #WhyUVote
• In student loan and higher ed news - according to one op-ed writer the Higher ed bubble about to burst
• For Profit education probe continues
• Student debt largest ever
• Student loan debt continues to increase for young physicians
• Student Loan Blog says taking out loans is totally worth it... well of course they'd say this... they're the student loan blog, right?
• Knowledge Gap 7 in 10 without college degrees don't know basics about applying for financial aid - probably because they've never done it before.... and its not mandated on the No Child Left Behind Act...
• What's going on politically? Well today is a protest day in Egypt among youth movement organizers. Headlines say that there are Different names for Friday's protest in Egypt as youth movement calls for demonstrations
• Back at home President Obama answers questions at live twitter townhall with #AskObama tweets

In the marketing and business world:

• 20 something bring different culture to the workplace
• Young people don't use financial advisers, they use facebook
• More young people turning to mobile banking. Bank marketing people... take note!
• Study shows internet addiction is declining among Young people - probably due to internet addiction finally being seen as similar to television addiction
• Young Navajos leave reservation life behind to seek jobs

Have an awesome weekend and a fantastic Independence Day!

A few weeks ago, Republican Iowa State Sen. Shawn Hamerlinck told five Iowa university student government representatives to "go home" and to not worry about the work the senate is doing in the state house.

Here's the video in case you need a reminder:

He rightfully faced a steady barrage of flak for that, with Campus Progress taking the lead on a petition effort that asked Hamerlinck to apologize for his condescending remarks.

For a week, Hamerlinck was silent. But last Thursday he was moved to write an op-ed piece that posed as an apology. Get a load of this crap:

After offering eight years of instruction at a local community college as well as being a politician, my goal has always been to keep students out of the political fray in order for them to form their own opinions and ideologies. With that objective in mind, perhaps I should have reworded my comments in such a manner as to avoid the political fray which a politician should know would follow from opposing political parties and the media. Let’s face it; this is political fodder at its best and I let my frustrations get the better of me. I was trying to keep students from being used and I fear they have become the very theater I hoped to shield them from. I apologize for not catching the motivation of the event sooner and wording my speech in a manner which allowed students to focus on their studies rather than playing into partisan politics at the Capitol.

In the end, my attempt to keep impressionable students out of the fray has instead ingested them into it, and for that I apologize. The betterment of Iowa is a great goal to have, and as statistics have shown, post-college graduation trends indicate that educated youth are our greatest export. I want students’ ultimate goal to be obtaining and retaining knowledge with the mindset of solving the problems in Iowa that my generation has been unable to do.

You know, I think the "apology" may be worse than Hamerlinck's original comments.

First, Hamerlinck continues to treat these college students as if they are 13. Legally, they are adults who, whether he likes it or not, have the constitutional right to participate in the political process. A little research alarmingly reveals that Hamerlinck, in addition to being an adjunct professor, works with the Iowa State University Scott County extension office as a "Youth Field Specialist." One of his responsibilities in this position also apparently forms a large piece of his childhood development; overseeing 4H must be a dream come true for Hamerlinck, given the 10 years he spent in the organization.

One might wonder what values 4H stands for, given that it is such a large part of Hamerlinck's life. Disengagement? Staying in the toy room while the adults yuk it up and play cards? Remaining content with learning how to tie one's shoes and play Gameboy?

From the 4H website:

Who We Are

4-H prepares young people to step up to the challenges in their community and the world. Using research-based programming around positive youth development, 4-H youth get the hands-on real world experience they need to become leaders.

Wow. You can't make this stuff up. Perhaps we should initiate a petition with 4H. Surely they don't want someone who believes that youth shouldn't get involved with their community to represent them?

Our communities are stunting themselves by not asking young people to learn about politics and civics firsthand. Research overwhelmingly shows that youth and college students learn best through active, collaborative, and engaged learning. Using this pedagogy actually prepares young citizens for the challenges inherent in a democracy. His apparent contempt for young people aside, what kind of good does Hamerlinck think he is doing by telling college students to sit down and shut up? Politics is everywhere, and in a healthy democracy, we need to have the experience to recognize systems of power and privilege and navigate them to pursue personal and social success.

You know that Saved By the Bell episode when Zack switches places with Mr. Belding and runs the school (Season 4, Episode 2 - check it out)? Maybe college students need to do the same with Sen. Hamerlinck. Yeah, students could teach the 4H program Hamerlinck administers, educating Hamerlinck on how to operate in "[a] world in which youth and adults learn, grow and work together as catalysts for positive change," otherwise known as the 4H vision statement.

In the end, officials like Hamerlinck will spurn young people at their peril. Somewhere, among your condescending speeches and phony apologies, you've forgotten that despite your party's efforts to the contrary, college students can and do vote. I trust that Iowa's young people will remember this when they cast their ballots on November 6, 2012.

Update: Of course, as a Facebook commenter suggests, we could also just get an engaged young person to run against him and kick him out. That would be great, too.

Some people bring you the news - others share the news - Future Majority brings you what's really going on with our generation and why it matters. Think about sharing on your Facebook or Tweeting it.

• The economy is so bad that Lawyers settle for temp jobs. I've actually been hearing about this from friends graduating from law schools and from older folks who are working at firms. Firms just don't have the money to hire new law school grads. They'll take them for internships but they can't afford the expense for new council.
• That said - you can still go hang out with some fun people. On behalf of Van Jones, you are cordially invited to the launch of Rebuild The Dream!
• OK this isn't entirely youthy but it's kinda a BFD. These people have been going after bloggers and websites who quote content from news pieces and claim that it's copyright infringement. Here's the thing, we bring you a lot of information, always cite it, and comment on it. They say this is illegal. But a judge says BS and they should just die a slow death (legally speaking). Judge to Copyright troll: your lawsuits are shams, give it up
• Workers in the European Union say that unpaid internships are bad. So now there's a nice Unpaid internships bill in EU gains momentum
• Well this is cool and super nice of them! Wish there were more people out there doing this! I know our generation could use it. If you live in the Chicago area - jump on the opportunity! New Naperville company helps college students find jobs
• I'm so excited CBS noticed: College Costs soar, and wages cover less of the tab
  One problem is this:

  "If you have any doubt about the value of a college degree, just look at the employment numbers. Overall unemployment is at 9.1 percent, but among college graduates, it's just 4.5 percent."

  These are "general numbers" and doesn't splice out 18-29 year olds - this stat is for all generations and all ages. Despite this story being about young people the numbers aren't the unemployment numbers for young people which are nearly double what CBS cites.
  

  The most important part of this piece is this:

  "In 1980, a 10-week summer job at minimum wage meant a teenager could save up about half of the cost of a year's tuition at a public university. Today, that same minimum wage job covers only 18 percent."

  With increases in costs running rampant wages haven't kept up which makes our society and our economy out of balance. This will be the broken leg our generation will be forced to stand on for years to come.

• Paying off student loan debt through job opportunities - should students seek out employment that allows repayment and forgiveness
• The decline but not fall of hierarchy - what young people really want. Oddly enough this feature in Forbes doesn't include the answer to "what young people want" as being "jobs, health care, affordable education." But rather... social media access.... Ok ok its true yes we want that too but I think that comes behind the big three at the top....
  

  "having grown up engaging in dialogue with prominent commentators, journalists, and politicians, Generation Y wants the same at work and large companies have now incorporated social media platforms across their organizations..."

• Debt ignores young people's concerns
• Why young people were more interested to work in Australia?
• As Economy Further impacts young people "Generation opportunity" takes flight
• MAINE GOP not alone in trying to lower voter turnout
• Congrats to the AWESOME 2011 40 leaders under 40 from the NLC
• Recession Grads: Judggling a tough job market and student loans
• Revolutionizing student loans in poverty-stricken countries
• Class-action law suit alleges fraud at Henrico for profit school
• Teachers may lose raises for masters degrees. Typically people who have masters degrees would go into teaching positions if they got a bump in pay for their advanced degree. Because the economy is so tough and funding for schools is being cut - those students who are getting their advanced degree while waiting out the economic crisis/downfall/depression might not be able to make the same extra bank if they "fall back" on a teaching gig.

• Starting off with some health news... One study recently found that many young people with Type 2 diabetes have impaired cardiovascular function due to stiffened arteries.
• Kurt Metzger's "Talk to Young People about Sex" album will be released on Comedy Central on June 28th
• We need to see more of this: An Iowa City city council candidate is running to give young adults a voice.
• Call it the scone rush? For struggling young people, one cafe in the Chicago area intentionally creates opportunities for recently imprisoned youth to get back on their feet.
• Obama again reaching out to youth through youth roundtables.
• New York's state financial aid agency offers college students advice on how to strengthen their financial fitness following college.
• The San Francisco Chronicle offers its own advice.
• But before you graduate from college, you need to succeed there. Here are some tips for first year students in your first year.
• Entrepreneurship 101: A guide for new college grads looking to fly solo
• Grants that help youth be their own bosses? Interesting.
• The trials and tribulations of the intern and other tales of unpaid labor
• The for-profit price of student loans (and it's not stormtroopers on a collection mission. At least in this story).