How do they find these sob stories?

My parents weren't wealthy, but they also didn't borrow money to send their children to college (I think one of us four were in college continually between 1953 and 1963). There were very few loans or scholarships in those days, and colleges weren't dependent on them as they are now. The more money is available for loans, the higher the costs go, is my theory. See the Measuring up 2008 report if you want to see how college costs have leap frogged over all other segments of the economy.


I went to a private Christian college, Manchester in Indiana, and then transferred to the University of Illinois; the costs at the two were comparable. I worked in high school and had enough saved ($1,000) for one year, but my parents covered the next two years. I got a small scholarship from my church, which embarrassed my father and he donated it back. I worked during summer break and about 10-15 hours a week while I was in school, usually either in the library or at a drug store near campus. I got married before I graduated and that was the end of the "gravy train," so I then had to borrow money from my father and pay it back, and I cobbled together some graduate stipends. I had to beg the powers at U. of I., as I recall, to be considered a state resident, because I'd married an out-of-state student, and like our names, the residency seemed to change with the spouse. I also got turned down for a better paid graduate assistantship because I was married, and had "a spouse who could support me." Ah those were the days!


Still, it doesn't sound as silly as one of the examples in today's WSJ, about a real estate agent working one of the most fabulous vacation spots in the country, San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington, who is struggling with her son's University of Chicago tuition as sales drop off. To add to the economic down turn stress, her husband has lymphoma. Someone in that family needs a spinal implant--either the mother or son. In a blink of an eye, I knew what my dad would have done. I'd be called home, the facts of life would be explained, and an offer presented--I'd either transfer to a state school, or I'd get a job.

Jane Sawyer, a real-estate agent in San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington, is struggling to keep her son, Michael Guard, enrolled at the University of Chicago, where he's now a sophomore. "I'm trying really hard so he doesn't graduate with a mountain of debt," she says.

As house sales fell this year, Ms. Sawyer says, her income tumbled to a third of what she'd made in previous years, while her expenses rose. Her husband, Michael's stepfather, recently had a stem-cell transplant for lymphoma. All of that has left Michael, 19, scrambling for money to stay at Chicago for the quarter that begins after Christmas. He already has some grants and student loans, covering about $20,000 of Chicago's $50,000-a-year bill. But he's been relying on his mother and savings from summer jobs to cover the remainder.

Michael, who studies philosophy and Spanish, is now considering asking his step-grandfather for a loan. He says he may skip the winter quarter and transfer to a cheaper school next year. "I hate the idea of having to borrow money," he says."

And to top it off, he's studying philosophy--what's the return on a degree like that? For this his mother lies awake at night trying to figure out how to pay his bills? Oh, yes, it is a very different time.