The Towerlight, February 16, 2012

1 N?\ ■ КйШгобЗИ t j v Rising debt, unemployment rates hinder student aspirations LAUREN SLAVIN Editor-in-Chief In 2010, after five years of education at Howard Community College and Towson University, Amber Dadourian became the first person in her family to graduate from college. A mass communication major looking to go into the field of journalism, Daourian thought having her bachelor’s degree would open doors and see her through the goals she set before even starting college. "I would get married, buy a house, have children and grow old with the people I loved surrounding me and having a career doing my passion everyday: writing," Dadourian said in an email. "As the economy started to decline and newspapers were shutting down, I was forced to accept the industry I had always wanted to work in was shrinking and my opportunity to be a writer would be much harder than I anticipated years prior.” In an economy with a 16.3 percent unemploy¬ ment rate for 18-24-year-olds and rising college tuition costs with fewer scholarship options, many students are forced to realign their dreams with how they can realistically afford to live. On Feb. 2, The Towerlight and several other college newspapers participated in a conference call with Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. "We know couple things for certain. [President Barack Obama] and I know that neither of us would I be in the positions we are now ... were it not for the fact we got a good education and someone helped us get it. None of us were able to do it on our own,” Biden said in the conference call. "We always talk about the middle class. The president said in his State of the Union the defin¬ ing issue of our time is to keep that promise alive. And that’s to be able to live a basic, middle-class existence.” Every student should have the opportunity to experience the American Dream, Biden said, mentioning specifically the ability to buy a house, send their children to school, and feel a sense of security. In January’s State of the Union address, Obama called for Congress and universities around the country to re-evaluate how they are keeping costs down in higher education and how the federal government can aid in increased col¬ lege affordability. Biden and Obama are currently traveling to institutions of higher education to explain how their proposals could make a differ¬ ence in the lives of students. Though the United States is a far less class- based society than some nations, the ability to afford a college education has become what separates those with a chance to achieve the American Dream, according to Sam Collins, chair of the department of sociology, anthropology and criminal justice. While the graduation gap between white, black and Hispanic students has decreased at institu¬ tions across the country and closed completely at Towson University in 2010, the graduation gap between families in the 90th percentile of income and the 10th percentile of income grew by 40 percent from 1960 to 2007, the New York Times reported in a Feb. 9 article. "In some ways, college accessibility has become a kind of new class definition," Collins said. "You’re creating this kind of tiered system where people without resources go to community college and people that have resources go to Ivy Leagues. There’s no dream there at all. There’s just simply the status quo." For 2011 alumnus Matthew Noll, the American Dream means having financial security, which is part of the reason he said he decided to study biology and chemistry at Towson and apply for pharmacy school after graduation. He currently attends the University of Maryland, Baltimore School of Pharmacy. "I feel today that many students go to school to get a degree in something that they enjoy, which is fine, but don’t look at the job market trend for possible careers when they graduate, which is stupid," Noll said in an email. "Why would one get a degree for a job sector that has limited openings? I also don’t understand why people go out of state to colleges that cost $30,000 per year to attend or places like Goucher [College] . There is no advantage there." Many areas of the job market are facing layoffs and hiring freezes, and despite the level of edu¬ cation an applicant has, there is no guarantee of security. "Two decades ago you would’ve said that studying to be a secondary school teacher would See DREAM, page 8