Lifelong Debt Coming To A Theatre Near You

 

 

I think we all agree that college is very important.  Where else can a young adult learn how to binge drink on taxpayer money?

Of course, I'm joking. College is a place of real learning, like learning how all Republicans are EVIL, your parents are stupid, and Stalin was a good listener.

Except, of course, in the College of Business, where my son was stationed for four odd years.  I'm not sure what he learned there. He understands this basic business principle: you have to make money. But, unfortunately, this concept seems to have escaped his peers, a couple of which have been elected to Congress.

I could rant and rave about college all day. It is a necessary evil in the world. We need to have a place where we can warehouse intelligent young people so they don't come around us.

Seriously, we need a place to train doctors, engineers, architects, and even lawyers.  I might be generous and grant that we need a place to train school teachers, although I will point out I was taught to read by my mother, a high school dropout. (It was the Depression, and there was cotton to chop.)

I'm sure we don't need a School of Film-Making or whatever it is at Columbia University.

Columbia University is an Ivy League School in Manhattan. It is the only Ivy League school down the street from Tom's Diner, which has such fancy-schmancy clientele as Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza.

Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported, "Recent film program graduates of Columbia University who took out federal student loans had a median debt of $181,000."   According to my Kennesaw State education, the critical word is "median".  Median means middle, which means some of the graduates' debt is lower, but some are higher.

This is a two-year program. I thought I'd throw that in.

The Wall Street Journal goes on to say, "Yet two years after earning their master’s degrees, half of the borrowers were making less than $30,000 a year."

You would think having the words "Columbia University" on your resume would bring more scratch.

 I mean, you could go to Kennesaw State University Film School, if they had one, for probably a quarter of the amount and still get a job that makes less than $30,000 a year.

I know because when I graduated Kennesaw State, with my history degree, I had people lined up to hire me at Amway.

I eventually fell into an office job with an insurance company, where I stayed for 17 years until the office was closed. But, of course, by that time, we were a different insurance company.

While it wasn't my dream job of driving a history truck, it allowed me to make some money to pay off my student loans, get married, buy a house, and have a child.

The Wall Street Journal said, "There’s always those 2 a.m. panic attacks where you’re thinking, ‘How the hell am I ever going to pay this off?’ " said 29-year-old Zack Morrison, of New Jersey, who earned a Master of Fine Arts in film from Columbia in 2018 and praised the quality of the program. His graduate school loan balance now stands at nearly $300,000, including accrued interest. He has been earning between $30,000 and $50,000 a year from work as a Hollywood assistant and such side gigs as commercial video production and photography."

After three years, his graduate school loan balance is almost $300,000.00.  What a nightmare!

Well, Zack, unless you create another "Star Wars" (hey, it is possible), I don't think you will be able to pay off that loan making $30K-50k a year. 

Do you know who will pay for it?

The kid who went into the Army, the kid that became a plumber, the kid that opens up a hair salon, the kid who got a "worthless degree" and found a job anyway, the kid that became a teacher, the kid that drives a truck, that's who will pay off this loan eventually.

Who is at fault?

Columbia is, of course. They see this as a revenue stream. They don't see students. They see dollar signs.   

The students are at fault too.  Nobody really knows what it takes to make it in the entertainment industry.  I'm not sure you can teach it at college, but I know it doesn't cost $300 grand a year.

So, kids, you ain't Spielberg.  I know film is your "passion," but you also have a "passion" to eat. That is unless you have an extra $300,000.00 laying around.