Someone at an Occupy rally once told me, “student loans are a form of slavery.” I won’t go into how that is horribly wrong on so many levels. But in the literal sense, I will argue that student loan debt is a form of indentured servitude. It’s a horrible thing isn’t it? You’re told your whole life that you have to go to college. Going to college will mean that you will make more money so that you can live out your dreams. A college education will lead you to the money you need to buy a house, some toys, pay for a marriage, and support children. You were conned. Why should you have to pay for a lie? You were 18 years old. Beyond that, you’re overwhelmed. You can’t pursue any other dreams because of this debt. You are indentured. What should you do? Serve your sentence. I was conned too. I paid tens of thousands of dollars for an education that set me behind. I paid my debt (on point with the national average at the time) in three years. I worked as hard as I could at a job that I hated. I lived with my parents. This is not a “woe is me” comment. I am telling you this because it is the first of three reasons why government relief of student loans is immoral and selfish. I served my sentence. I will not serve anyone else’s. The second is because our country is 16 trillion dollars in debt. No different from the graduate who is paralyzed by his debt, our country will soon feel the same suffocation. Especially because the fundamental problem has not been corrected. It is a quadrupedal bypass with a high trans fat diet, a prohibition from exercise, and all the tasty cigarettes we can smoke, prescribed for recovery. The third is because, despite and in spite of this, we do need to invest MORE in education. That education is in skilled trades, engineering, language, renewable energy, medicine, technology, and environmental science. We cannot add to the bill by retroactively covering debt for useless education. It is paying twice. We MUST spend money on education, but that of the future and not of the past. The student loan crisis is a generational test. Please, let us pass this one.
