Student Debt Crisis, Not Caring for Our Young Men and Women Is a National Disgrace
College students have racked up $1.5 trillion in student loan debt. These students take on staggering debt and blindly head off to college, hoping for the best. For many college students, this is a formula for disaster. These leaders of tomorrow have been abandoned to fend for themselves. They are told, “You’ll figure it out.” Really? Students going off to college are receiving little or no counseling on this significant – possibly life-changing – financial encumbrance, which is compounded by virtually no investment in their career development: knowing what to major in based on their unique design. Students are grossly uninformed financially and unprepared to think critically about who they are, which is crucial to knowing which career paths to pursue that “fit.” This is a lethal combination which potentially cancels out academic and life success.
The statistics are staggering of how many lives are devastated each year by this blindness. Students are dropping out after a year or two of study with little to show for it, but now are saddled with huge, life-altering debt. Some finish college but are unable to pursue the career that they are passionate about because the salary in that field will not suffice considering their monthly $400 to $500 loan payment. Many are defaulting on these massive student loans, and the debt collectors are going after the assets and pensions of co-signing family members. The impact of loan defaulting is having a ripple effect not just on the next generation of employees, mom and dads, home buyers, and community members, but also on the whole nation, which potentially faces a national financial catastrophe. Dr. Barmak Nassirian, from the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, stated that this looming debt crisis – which I believe is compounded by a lack of clear career direction for college students – is “going to be very consequential for the future of our country.” Shouldn’t we be informing, investing in, caring for, and protecting our young men and women? We are not. This is a national disgrace.
In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos shared her thoughts on student-loan debts and college students’ career preparation. She spoke of her sincere concern regarding mounting student debt and its implications. A number of initiatives were cited as remedies for this problem, such as reforming the Federal Student Loan Aid Platform, increasing available information about college program costs and earning potential by major, and reviewing accreditation in higher education. These changes by the Department of Education will not significantly impact this national crisis. These actions are certainly well intended, but they will not solve the problem.
Then she landed on the real issue! DeVos made the case for encouraging young people much earlier in life to explore “what they are wired up to do” vocationally. She said that “students need to think about their innate aptitudes and not wait until they graduate.” She also said that “communities have to take responsibility for this in a major way.” The seemingly illusive concept that DeVos is trying to identify is calling. Vocational calling is the key to unlocking a valid approach to attacking this national failure. It is a bold statement to make, but helping students to establish a firm understanding of their calling and design will make a college education pay off and help solve the student-debt issue.
DeVos has identified the core problem but has not provided a viable solution. Saying it is a community’s responsibility to increase career development earlier in a student’s life is true, but the specifics are lacking. As the director of a nationally ranked career-services program for over 20 years, I have advised thousands of college students. Most students put on a good face, but truth be known, most of them have no idea about their design, vocational calling, and what that all means for choosing a major and a career. So I affirm DeVos’ appraisal.
Each person has been uniquely crafted – or as DeVos said, “wired” – to find meaning, purpose, and satisfaction in the world of work and career. This “fit” will be discovered by investing time into identifying that uniqueness and then connecting it to the world of work. The facilitation of a student’s self-knowledge and assessment is the starting point for this process. This is the framework for designing a blueprint of the individual’s calling DNA. Knowing one’s design, transferable skills, aptitude, abilities, interests, personality, and characteristics will lay the foundation for solid career development. This must start in the home.
Parents need to take the lead in encouraging self-assessment– the cornerstone of good career development– which will help identify all these unique and wonderful attributes of a son or daughter. Parents, who know their children better than anyone, can help them reflect on who they are and what that potentially means for them with college major and career interests. Other influencers – such as teachers, coaches and youth pastors– can also contribute to this awareness of gifting.
Guidance counseling also must be in place as this crucial process continues. For private school, homeschooling, and Christian schools, this counseling must be sought out and secured. Within the public system, we must get back to guidance counselors having the primary role of personally mentoring and guiding students in self-awareness and career exploration. This is not happening currently. Having talked with countless guidance professionals over the years, staffs have been cut, and they are now responsible for school duties that have nothing to do with the core objectives of their profession.
Finally, college career-services offices have to do their job. Over 60% of college students have never stepped into their career-services office or have only visited once or twice. Something is terribly wrong with that picture. Many career offices are not effectively meeting the needs of their students. This must change.
The understanding of calling revolutionizes career development. Students must be personally assisted in helping to confirm a major and to realize and pursue their own distinguishing and individual callings. Then they need to be directed and led in connecting who they are to their “fit” in the marketplace. This is the charge for a career-services professional. The role of these three indispensable components of the career-development process cannot be overstated.
If students are actively engaged and invested in the right philosophy and resources regarding calling and career development, the student loan and default rates will be significantly reduced, college retention and graduation rates will increase, and students will have a much better opportunity for career and life success.
Dr. Jim Thrasher is the Senior Fellow for Vocational Guidance and the coordinator of the Institute for Faith and Freedom working group on calling.
Editor’s Note: This piece was originally published by The Institute for Faith & Freedom at Grove City College.
THE DEMOCRAT PARTY’S BILLIONAIRES’ GLOBALIST EMPIRE requires someone as ruthlessly dishonest as Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama to be puppet dictators.
http://hillaryclinton-whitecollarcriminal.blogspot.com/2018/09/google-rigged-it-so-illegals-would-vote.html
THE DEMOCRAT PARTY’S BILLIONAIRES’ GLOBALIST EMPIRE requires someone as ruthlessly dishonest as Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama to be puppet dictators.
http://hillaryclinton-whitecollarcriminal.blogspot.com/2018/09/google-rigged-it-so-illegals-would-vote.html
1. Globalism: Google VP Kent Walker insists that despite its repeated rejection by electorates around the world, “globalization” is an “incredible force for good.”
2. Hillary Clinton’s Democratic party: An executive nearly broke down crying because of the candidate’s loss. Not a single executive expressed anything but dismay at her defeat.
3. Immigration: Maintaining liberal immigration in the U.S is the policy that Google’s executives discussed the most.
HILLARY CLINTON’S GLOBALIST VISION:
SURRENDER OF OUR BORDERS WITH NARCOMEX AND SUCKING IN GLOBAL BRIBES FOR THE PHONY CLINTON FOUNDATION
Even though it has gone virtually unreported by Corporate media, Breitbart News has extensively documented the Clintons’
longstanding support for “open borders.” Interestingly, as the Los Angeles Times observed in 2007, the Clinton’s praise for
globalization and open borders frequently comes when they are
speaking before a wealthy foreign audiences and donors.
THE OBAMA – CLINTON RUSSIA CONNECTION
WITH THESE TRAITORS, JUST FOLLOW THE MONEY!
How President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton aided Russia’s quest for global nuclear dominance.
Biden Lays Out Globalist Vision to Counter Trump’s America First Agenda: ‘I Respect No Borders’
6:14
Former Vice President Joe Biden laid out an extensive foreign policy vision meant to counter President Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda during a speech in New York City on Thursday.
Biden, who has been criticized by former Obama administration colleagues for being on the “wrong” side of most international issues, began his remarks by noting that American policies at home and abroad are “deeply” intertwined.
“In 2019, foreign policy is domestic policy, in my view, and domestic policy is foreign policy. They’re deeply connected,” the 76-year-old Democrat frontrunner said. “A deeply connected set of choices we make about how to advance the American way of life and our vision for the future.”
Arguing that Trump’s “Twitter tantrums” and “embrace of dictators” had ruined America’s standing in the eyes of other nations, Biden said his first actions as president would focus on strengthening democracy. To that end, Biden said his administration would remake the U.S. education system, expand the Voting Rights Act, reform the criminal justice system, and implement more transparent campaign finance laws.
“We have to prove to the world the United States is prepared to lead, not just by the example of our power but by the power of our example,” he said.
Biden further pledged to improve America’s moral leadership by relaxing immigration and asylum laws, protecting illegal aliens already in the country, and reversing policies that prevent tax dollars from going to abortion providers overseas .
“The challenge of following this disastrous presidency will not be just to restore the reputation of our credibility,” Biden said. “It will be to enact a forward-looking foreign policy for the world as we find it today and as we anticipate it will be tomorrow and years to come.”
The centerpiece of that “forward-looking global” agenda, according to the former vice president, would be renewed cooperation with other nations to tackle “dangers” like climate change, nuclear proliferation, cyber warfare, and terrorism.
“American security, prosperity, and our way of life requires the strongest possible network of partners and alliances working alongside one another,” Biden said. “Donald Trump’s brand of ‘America First’ has too often led to America alone.”
If elected, Biden promised to organize and host a “global summit for democracy” to renew “the spirit and shared purpose of the nations of the free world.” The summit’s goal would be to push countries to fight corruption, advance human rights, and fight back against authoritarianism, nationalism, and ill-liberal tendencies.
“We have to be honest about our friends that are falling short and forge a common agenda to address the greatest threats to our shared values,” Biden said, before outlining the private sector’s role.
“We’ll challenge the private sector, including the tech companies and social media giants, to make their own commitments,” he said. “I believe they have a duty to make sure their algorithm and platforms are not misused to sew division here at home or empower their surveillance states to be able to facility their oppression and censorship in China or elsewhere.”
Despite the lofty promises, the majority of Biden’s speech was dedicated to repudiating Trump’s “America First Agenda,” which emphasizes national sovereignty and the American worker over global interests.
“The world is not organized itself,” the former vice president said. “If we do not shape the norms and institutions that govern relations among nations, rest assured that some nation will step into the vacuum, or no one will, and chaos will prevail.”
In order to have a foreign policy that placed the “America back at the head of the table working” with allies and other nations, Biden urged the country to recognize that working in tandem across national boundaries was unavoidable.
“Let me be clear, working cooperatively with other nations to share our values and goals doesn’t make America as it seems to imply in this administration, suckers,” he said. “It makes us more secure. Enables us to be more successful… No country, even one as powerful as ours, can go alone in the challenge of the 21st century.
“I respect no borders and cannot be contained by any walls,” Biden added, taking a shot at Trump’s efforts to reassert control over the U.S.-Mexico border.
With that in mind, the former vice president committed to leading “an effort to reimagine” America’s global priorities. At the top of his list was preventing nuclear proliferation, which Biden hoped to accomplish by rejoining the Iran Nuclear Deal and extending the New START Treaty between the U.S. and Russia. Both are Obama-era initiatives widely interpreted to have been negotiated to the detriment of U.S. interests.
The Iran Deal, which Trump abandoned soon after taking office, would have removed sanctions and given the country millions in financial relief in exchange for little oversight on their commitment to shutter their nuclear arsenal. Likewise, the New START Treaty, which is still in effect until 2021, has been criticized by Trump for allowing Russia to violate its parameters.
Apart from reentering the nuclear deal, Biden signaled he would further take pressure off Iran by ending U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen. The conflict has been brewing since 2014, when Houthi rebels, backed by Iran, attempted to overthrow the Yemeni government. Saudi Arabia, seeking to counter Iran’s influence in the Middle East, interceded to defend Yemen through aerial bombardment. Although the bombing likely staved off the collapse of the Yemeni government, it has been blamed for civilian causalities. There is also debate in Congress as to whether America’s support for the Saudis requires military authorization.
The former vice president also lambasted one of Trump’s major political accomplishments in opening communication with North Korea. Even though Biden initially criticized Trump for having fallen “in love with a murderous dictator in North Korea,” he nevertheless suggested his administration would do a better job of convincing the country to denuclearize by teaming up with China.
“I will empower our negotiators to jumpstart a sustained coordinated campaign with our allies and others including China to advance our shared objective,” he said. “It is a shared objective.”
The one issue Biden appeared to agree with Trump on was scaling down America’s involvement in the Middle East.
“It’s long past time we end the forever wars which have cost us untold blood and treasure,” the former vice president said. “I have long-argued that we should bring home the vast majority of our combat troops from the wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East and narrowly focus on our mission to deal with Al-Qaeda and ISIS in the region.”
Biden, however, failed to mention that he had championed both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, even applauding President George W. Bush in 2002 for having chosen a “course of moderation and deliberation.”