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Debt Affecting Career Choices: Costs Could Deter Students From Teaching, Report Says

Posted on: Sunday, 21 May 2006, 12:00 CDT

By Dorie Turner, Chattanooga Times/Free Press, Tenn.

May 21--Charlie Moss graduated from UTC in 2002 ready to mold young minds in the classroom.

But after a year teaching, he realized the salary wasn't enough to pay off the $24,000 in loans he accrued in college.

"I owe quite a bit of money for something I'm not even doing right now," said the 30-year-old, who is the chief projectionist at the Imax 3D Theater downtown. "I don't really care about making a lot of money, but I also don't want to be in debt."

Mr. Moss, who said he now makes about $5,000 a year more than he did as a teacher, isn't alone.

The growing cost of getting a higher education could deter students from going into or staying in fields such as teaching and social work, according to a new report from the State Public Interest Resource Groups' Higher Education Project. Nearly one in four public college graduates who go into teaching and more than onethird of social work graduates can't manage their student loan debt, according to the report.

The numbers are worse for private college graduates, the report states. More than onethird of teaching graduates and more than half of social work graduates have problems paying off college debt.

In Tennessee, 19 percent of public college graduates can't afford loan payments on their teaching salaries, and in Georgia, nearly 12 percent of public college graduates have unman- ageable loans, according to the study.

"In the process of saddling young people with student debt, we close those doors (to college)," said Luke Swarthout, who wrote the "Paying Back, Not Giving Back" report. "We're undermining the value of higher education."

According to the study, the "prospect of burdensome debt likely deters" college graduates from going into or staying in public service careers.

As the cost of paying for college has soared, more students are taking out loans for their education, figures show. According to the U.S. Department of Education, less than one-third of four-year college graduates had debt in 1993, but that number has jumped to two-thirds since then.

The average student loan debt is about $17,000, up from $9,200 in 1992-93, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

The starting annual salary for a teacher in Hamilton County is about $30,000. The nation's average starting salary for a social worker is less than $30,000. According to the PIRG study, a student with $20,000 in loans will have a monthly payment of $230 if he or she pays the loans back over 10 years at the current federal interest rate of 6.8 percent. That, combined with credit card payments, car payments and other debt, can add up quickly on an entry-level salary.

The study defines debt as unmanageable when individuals spend more than 20 percent of their discretionary income on loan payments. For a graduate who makes $30,000 a year, $183 or more in monthly loan payments would be unmanageable, according to the study. Mr. Swarthout said the federal government should focus on improving need-based aid for students so they don't have to take out loans for school. For the last five years, the federal government has frozen the amount of Pell grant money low-income students get while the cost of college has risen hundreds of dollars, he said.

Dr. Mary Tanner, dean of the College of Health, Education and Professional Studies at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, said the federal government should beef up its loan forgiveness program for teachers. Currently, teachers who work in low-income public schools for five years can get up to $5,000 of their loans forgiven. If they teach in math, science or special education, they can get up to $17,500 forgiven.

"That's exactly the way you do it -- you make it possible for people who want to, to get into the field and then help them with the cost of doing that," Dr. Tanner said.

Dr. Valerie Radu, who coordinates the UTC social work program, said many students are beginning to go to school part time and work part time to reduce their loan burden. Students also can complete their first two years of social work training at Chattanooga State Technical Community College, which is cheaper, and then transfer to UTC for the last two years of a bachelor's degree, she said.

"I'm always up front with students about thinking" through their student loan needs, she said.

E-mail Dorie Turner at dturner@timesfreepress.com ON THE WEB To view the "Paying Back, Not Giving Back" report by the Public Interest Resource Groups' Higher Education Project, go to www.pirg.org/ highered.

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Source: Chattanooga Times/Free Press

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