Thankful for So Much!! Paying Off My Student Loans at 60 Years of Age

Today, after turning 60 a few months ago, I finally paid off my student loans—the loans that made it possible for me to get my doctorate from Columbia University. I was in school for eight years from 1988 to 1996, studying with some of the brightest minds in learning, development, and psychology (Rothkopf, Black, Peverly, Kuhn, Higgins, Dweck, Mischel, Darling-Hammond, not to mention my student cohort). If my math is right, that’s 22 years to pay off my student-loan debt. A ton of interest paid too!

I’m eternally grateful! Without the federal government funding my education, my life would have been so much different. I would never have learned how to understand the research on learning. My work at Work-Learning Research, Inc.—attempting to bridge the gap between research and practice—would not have been possible. Thank you to my country—the United States of America—and fellow citizens for giving me the opportunity of a lifetime!! Thanks also must go to my wife for marrying into the forever-string of monthly payments. Without her tolerance and support I certainly would be lost in a different life.

I’ve often reflected on my good fortune in being able to pursue my interests, and wondered why we as a society don’t do more to give our young people an easier road to pursue their dreams. Even when I hear about the brilliant people winning MacArthur fellowships, I wonder why only those who have proven their genius are being boosted. They are deserving of course, but where is our commitment to those who might be teetering on a knife edge of opportunity and economic desperation? I was even lucky as an undergrad back in the late 1970’s, paying relatively little for a good education at a state school and having parents who funded my tuition and living expenses. College today is wicked expensive, cutting out even more of our promising youth from realizing their potential.

Economic mobility is not as easy as we might like it. The World Bank just released a report showing that worldwide only 12% of young adults have been able to obtain more education than their parents. The United States iis no longer the land of opportunity we once liked to imagine.

This is crazy short-sighted, and combine this with our tendency to underfund our public schools, it has the smell of a societal suicide.

That’s depressing! Today I’m celebrating my ability to get student loans two-and-a-half decades ago and pay them off over the last twenty-some years! Hooray!

Seems not so important when put into perspective. It’s something though.