Degrees of debt: How deep to college students need to go?
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| Ken Ilgunas in the van he lived in while paying off student loans. (SUBMITTED PHOTO) |
By Sara Schweiger TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
Sara.Schweiger@telegram.com
Sara.Schweiger@telegram.com
LEOMINSTER — A retrofitted 1994 Econoline van may not be most students' idea of a dorm room, but for Ken Ilgunas, it was part and parcel of his mission to further his education without furthering his debt.
At 6:30 p.m. Thursday, the Leominster Public Library will host a discussion of Mr. Ilgunas' 2013 memoir "Walden on Wheels: On the Open Road From Debt to Freedom." The book, which the author describes as a self-deprecating travel memoir, recounts a five-year period in which he paid off $32,000 in undergraduate student loans and acquired a graduate degree debt-free.
Thursday's session is part of Mount Wachusett Community College's Humanities Project, a multiyear initiative to integrate annual themes in the humanities into campus curriculum and community events. The first year, with a theme of "East Meets West in a Cabin in Concord: Walden and Beyond," features a series of free events spotlighting various works written or inspired by Henry David Thoreau, as well as student projects developed by MWCC professors.
When Mr. Ilgunas graduated from the University at Buffalo with a degree in English and history in 2006, the U.S. was in the middle of a dramatic spike in student loan debt figures. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the number of borrowers and the amount borrowed ballooned by 70 percent from 2004 to 2012.
In 2004, 900,000 students graduating from four-year colleges had loan debt. That rose to 1.1 million in 2008 and 31 million in 2012, according to the Institute for College Access and Success. The average amount of student debt in 2012 was $29,400, up from $18,750 in 2004.
Nationwide, student loan debt totals $1.2 trillion.
Filled with angst over his debt and determined to pay it off quickly, Mr. Ilgunas, who grew up in Wheatfield, N.Y., moved to a remote town in Alaska, where he worked a series of menial jobs before hitchhiking 5,000 miles and continuing to work odd jobs while paying down his debt.
Newly debt-free and with $4,000 to his name, Mr. Ilgunas enrolled at Duke University, where he lived a secret, Spartan, solo life in a van in an off-campus lot until he earned his master's in 2011.
Mr. Ilgunas, 31, said he discovered Thoreau in his early 20s, and that he used both the author's ideals and his own experiences on the road as a guide for his van-dwelling experiment.
Mr. Ilgunas, who continues to live debt-free, believes that student loan debt is unavoidable for many, beneficial for some and manageable for most.
"If you're graduating with a marketable degree, or if you went to a prestigious school, or if you have professional connections, or if you have some certainly you'll get a well-paying job, I think it's reasonable to go into a fair bit of debt. Sometimes debt can be a helpful investment.
"For ordinary students like myself, who graduate with a liberal arts degree, I think it would be wise to keep your student debt below $25,000. That can be paid off in just a couple of years with diligence and frugality."
Mr. Ilgunas posits that part of the so-called student loan debt crisis stems from both inflated tuition and inflated expectations.
"I do question if college students need a lot of the 'bloat' that is now common on almost every major university — like big football teams, climbing gyms and lavish dining options," he said. "These perks don't exactly contribute to the learning experience. I think at the heart of a college education is a group of students discussing ideas with a professor, and all the bloat and fluff jacks up the price for what shouldn't be a horribly expensive service."
That being said, Mr. Ilgunas also blames rising student loan debt on the rising cost of college.
Michelle Valois, English professor and chair of liberal arts and sciences and general studies at MWCC, is coordinator of the NEH grant project. Students in her freshman composition class this semester are studying both Thoreau's "Walden" and Mr. Ilgunas' "Walden on Wheels." She said the latter is resonating with students, who find it accessible and funny.
Ms. Valois, who will facilitate Thursday's discussion, said she agreed with Mr. Ilgunas' writing that "taking out student loans was a momentous event in my life, yet I don't have the faintest recollection of the event."
"I went to college 20 years before Ilgunas but had the same experience," she wrote in an email. "I was given all this money with no one informing me of what exactly I was getting myself into in the same way that I would have been schooled in what a mortgage represented or even a car loan."
MWCC's Humanities Project is being funded by a National Endowment for the Humanities challenge grant, of which MWCC was one of 173 recipients last year. The $500,000 grant is being matched with funds raised by the MWCC Foundation to endow the initiative over the next six years. For more MWCC Humanities Project events, visit www.mwcc.edu/humanitiesproject.
Email Sara Schweiger at Sara.Schweiger@telegram.com. Follow her on Twitter@SschweigerTG
At 6:30 p.m. Thursday, the Leominster Public Library will host a discussion of Mr. Ilgunas' 2013 memoir "Walden on Wheels: On the Open Road From Debt to Freedom." The book, which the author describes as a self-deprecating travel memoir, recounts a five-year period in which he paid off $32,000 in undergraduate student loans and acquired a graduate degree debt-free.
Thursday's session is part of Mount Wachusett Community College's Humanities Project, a multiyear initiative to integrate annual themes in the humanities into campus curriculum and community events. The first year, with a theme of "East Meets West in a Cabin in Concord: Walden and Beyond," features a series of free events spotlighting various works written or inspired by Henry David Thoreau, as well as student projects developed by MWCC professors.
When Mr. Ilgunas graduated from the University at Buffalo with a degree in English and history in 2006, the U.S. was in the middle of a dramatic spike in student loan debt figures. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the number of borrowers and the amount borrowed ballooned by 70 percent from 2004 to 2012.
In 2004, 900,000 students graduating from four-year colleges had loan debt. That rose to 1.1 million in 2008 and 31 million in 2012, according to the Institute for College Access and Success. The average amount of student debt in 2012 was $29,400, up from $18,750 in 2004.
Nationwide, student loan debt totals $1.2 trillion.
Filled with angst over his debt and determined to pay it off quickly, Mr. Ilgunas, who grew up in Wheatfield, N.Y., moved to a remote town in Alaska, where he worked a series of menial jobs before hitchhiking 5,000 miles and continuing to work odd jobs while paying down his debt.
Newly debt-free and with $4,000 to his name, Mr. Ilgunas enrolled at Duke University, where he lived a secret, Spartan, solo life in a van in an off-campus lot until he earned his master's in 2011.
Mr. Ilgunas, 31, said he discovered Thoreau in his early 20s, and that he used both the author's ideals and his own experiences on the road as a guide for his van-dwelling experiment.
Mr. Ilgunas, who continues to live debt-free, believes that student loan debt is unavoidable for many, beneficial for some and manageable for most.
"If you're graduating with a marketable degree, or if you went to a prestigious school, or if you have professional connections, or if you have some certainly you'll get a well-paying job, I think it's reasonable to go into a fair bit of debt. Sometimes debt can be a helpful investment.
"For ordinary students like myself, who graduate with a liberal arts degree, I think it would be wise to keep your student debt below $25,000. That can be paid off in just a couple of years with diligence and frugality."
Mr. Ilgunas posits that part of the so-called student loan debt crisis stems from both inflated tuition and inflated expectations.
"I do question if college students need a lot of the 'bloat' that is now common on almost every major university — like big football teams, climbing gyms and lavish dining options," he said. "These perks don't exactly contribute to the learning experience. I think at the heart of a college education is a group of students discussing ideas with a professor, and all the bloat and fluff jacks up the price for what shouldn't be a horribly expensive service."
That being said, Mr. Ilgunas also blames rising student loan debt on the rising cost of college.
Michelle Valois, English professor and chair of liberal arts and sciences and general studies at MWCC, is coordinator of the NEH grant project. Students in her freshman composition class this semester are studying both Thoreau's "Walden" and Mr. Ilgunas' "Walden on Wheels." She said the latter is resonating with students, who find it accessible and funny.
Ms. Valois, who will facilitate Thursday's discussion, said she agreed with Mr. Ilgunas' writing that "taking out student loans was a momentous event in my life, yet I don't have the faintest recollection of the event."
"I went to college 20 years before Ilgunas but had the same experience," she wrote in an email. "I was given all this money with no one informing me of what exactly I was getting myself into in the same way that I would have been schooled in what a mortgage represented or even a car loan."
MWCC's Humanities Project is being funded by a National Endowment for the Humanities challenge grant, of which MWCC was one of 173 recipients last year. The $500,000 grant is being matched with funds raised by the MWCC Foundation to endow the initiative over the next six years. For more MWCC Humanities Project events, visit www.mwcc.edu/humanitiesproject.
Email Sara Schweiger at Sara.Schweiger@telegram.com. Follow her on Twitter@SschweigerTG
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