Great Expectations

One topic that we have not touched is student loans. I used to just sign the papers thinking that I’ll just pay them off when I get a job. How ignorant, and arrogant of me. It’s likely that many musicians will carry about $50,000 in student loan debt when they leave college. My wife and I have been out of college for almost 10 years. We earn a good salary, we live within our means, and we’re still carrying around a significant amount of student loan debt. So much happens in life after school. I’ve moved many times in the last 10 years including a brief stay in Canada. I’ve bought and maintain a house, and I have a family. All of these things, along with so many others, cost a lot of money! I will pay off the loans someday, but I wish that I had given serious consideration to other alternatives. Incidentally, please listen to this podcast of an excerpt from 60 Minutes. It’s about student loans.

http://audio.cbsnews.com/2006/05/07/audio1596200.mp3

I think that since I’m still paying for college, I tend to get more frustrated with the classes that I didn’t need. Matt made the observation that it’s impossible for a college to teach everything that a student would need to know for life, and he is absolutely right. But, if you have a large number of students studying to play in orchestras, should colleges ignore some fundamental issues that they will face if they get one of those jobs? If you attend a major music school, you are paying a lot for that education. Shouldn’t you demand the most comprehensive education possible? Shouldn’t you question the need for certain classes, while others are excluded? Every musician will negotiate many things in their lives. Do you really want to learn the fundamentals of negotiating though experience? Trust me, it can cost more than that college degree.

I really have enjoyed reading everyone’s posts this week. There have been so many post that I thought were very good. I wish that I had had more time to discuss some of the excellent points raised by the other panelist, but my daughter is about to wake up from her nap. I just want to leave everyone with some further reading if they’re interested.

http://www.esm.rochester.edu/iml/prjc/poly/article.php?id=55
http://orchestrafacts.org/lew.htm