Generation Debt: How Our Future Was Sold Out for Student Loans, Bad Jobs, No Benefits, and Tax Cuts for Rich Geezers--And How to Fight Back [Mass Market Paperback]

Anya Kamenetz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 26, 2006

Generation Debt offers a truly gripping account of how young Americans are being ground down by low wages, high taxes, huge student loans, sky-high housing prices, not to mention the impending retirement of their baby boomer parents. Twenty-four-year-old Anya Kamenetz examines this issue from every angle and provides a riveting, rousing manifesto that will inspire everyone to take care of their financial future.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Surveying the economic realities facing today's 20- and 30-somethings, 24-four-old Kamenetz decides, "It's not too dramatic to say that the nation is abandoning its children." Thanks to skyrocketing tuition and changes in federal funding, college students are graduating with an average of almost $20,000 in loans at the same time that jobs have become scarcer, real wages have dropped and the cost of health care has soared. Is it any wonder that kids are boomeranging home and racking up credit card debt? Kamenetz, who first wrote about these issues for the Village Voice, intertwines an analytical overview of the new economic obstacles with interviews of the financially strapped and descriptions of her own experience struggling to make ends meet as a freelance journalist. Her book is livelier than Tamara Draut's similarly themed Strapped, but lighter in its analysis of law and policy. Most interestingly, Kamenetz documents how our perception of the crisis is shaped by self-centered boomers who have lost touch with their children's plight. More of a white paper than a guidebook, this volume doesn't offer under-40s much personal financial advice (that job is taken up by Gener@tion Debt, see review below). It does, however, make clear how imperative it is that we find solutions to these problems as quickly as possible. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

A new book tackles the 18-to-35-year-old generation's problems--those they face and those they create.Kamenetz believes the younger generation is hampered by the fact that salaries and job opportunities haven't kept up with drastically increasing costs of living. Because of the exorbitant cost of college, many young people can't afford to go, and those who do go graduate with huge debt. Graduates expect to pay off those loans once they get jobs, but entry-level jobs often come with low wages. The job prospects are even worse for those who don't finish or who don't go to college at all--some can't even afford living on their own, another drastically increased cost. The solution to these problems? Kamenetz makes a passionate argument for young people to take action, such as lobbying the government as a cohesive group and being practical and frugal about money matters.

Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Riverhead Trade (December 26, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594482349
• ISBN-13: 978-1594482342
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (60 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #428,529 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Some Strong Arguments for Change, May 26, 2006

By 

Frederick S. Goethel "wildcatcreekbooks" (Central Valley, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Generation Debt (Hardcover)

At the age of 50, I have seen the deterioration of the job market over the past 25 years, to the point where there are very few jobs that can be obtained with a BA or BS degree that will not be outsourced. In addition, I have watched as companies sold out their employees for the bottom line and the almghty dollar. It has become nearly impossible to stay in a job for very long, which in turn makes it very hard to pay down student debt.

I currently have a child in high school and I watch with amazement as districts push more and more students into the college merry-go-round with little thought as to whether or not they will be able to handle the work, or even finish a degree. At the same time I have watched as programs that would be very useful to the majority of today's kids are cut because the world has become so focused on testing and keeping little "Johnny" up to speed when he should be held back.

An example is the auto shop programs from when I was in high school. You could leave high school and get a job working as an auto mechanic directly from school. The programs now don't have the financing to buy the computer technology needed for these kids to actualy work as mechanics, even though the vast majority of graduating students will never go to college and will need some type of vo-tech training before they can become employable.

As is pointed out in this book, maybe we should re-examine the needs and desires of todays students to see what classes will actually beneft them. Adding classes which will allow students to work directly from school would decrease their debt loading and it would free up college space, as well as help employers get emplyees with a good solid training in a field that they want to work in.

I am fortunate enough to live in a district that is looking in that direction and is trying to figure out what classes the kids of today need to become employable in a global economy without having to become mired in debt while obtaining a degree thay may never use.

30 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars An interesting thesis that deserves a better treatment, July 2, 2007

By 

Mateo Palos - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Generation Debt (Hardcover)

While reading through this book I continually found myself thinking two things: she's probably correct, and she doesn't really know why.

Generation Debt is at its best when it emphasizes statistics and constant dollar comparisons. This is where it's easiest to see that young face financial challenges largely unknown and unpredicted by earlier generations. (In the interests of full disclosure, I should point out that I'm 22 and a fairly recent graduate.) Even if one doesn't accept that recent graduates are worse off per se, it's difficult not to feel that they don't have nearly as many financial certainties as their predecessors.

Where it fails is the solutions. Kamenetz clearly isn't a historian or an economist; even more problematic is her apparent failure to understand that this can and should limit her ability to suggest fixes to the current situation. She clearly considers conservative economics a failure, but what she writes about them reveals that she hasn't studied them very hard, or at any rate not very deeply. It's possible that they are indeed in large part responsible for the current situation, but as her evaluation of them never rises above the superficial, it's difficult to know how correct she is. Similarly, it would have been nice if she'd anticipated some of the possible downsides to the largely socialistic solutions she suggests. Kamenetz is clearly intelligent, but she doesn't seem to understand how serious intellectual debate works.

Overall it's hard not to feel like she's out of her league when discussing these issues, and I can't help but think that her editor would have done better to assign her a coauthor. Then we might have had a book equal to its thesis.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars It would be bad if not so hilariously absurd, March 23, 2009

By 

An (almost) impartial observer (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Generation Debt (Hardcover)

The book is a liberal denunciation of the modern American society in general and of its educational system in particular. There are statements in this book one finds it hard not to agree with -- for example when it correctly points to the outrageous practices of banks collecting huge profits from channeling federal educational loans to students.

Declining opportunities for young people, degradation of their standard of living, increased costs of college education, while indeed occurring, are illustrated by a set of stunningly absurd examples.

"Stella" from Chapter 2 borrowed $5000 per semester when she only needed $1000 for tuition (but she qualified for a higher loan amount -- why not to have it all?) and spent all of it on moving out of Mom's home and then spent some more on vacations (paid via credit cards) eventually running her debt to $33,000. While Stella's problems were clearly self-inflicted, Kamenetz blames the society that does not prepare young people for life. Do we need a nanny-state then to remove any responsibility from young people in making sound decisions?

"Latoya" from Chapter 3, "had funding for college, from Pell Grants, and she had support from her mother, but they weren't enough to keep her in school." If you wonder why -- "she didn't show the same hunger as her contemporaries". A paragraph later Kamenez contradicts herself with the praise of Latoya's "school performance, ambition, and background". But the society failed her and so she had to go (horror!) to the Navy.

"Jerman" also from Chapter 3 was born to a family in good financial standing that owned multiple homes and wineries in California. Yet we can see how the society failed Jerman and his siblings. Jerman's brother had had five kids by five different girls. Jeremy's sister had had four kids from two men by the age of 21. Jerman himself graduated from high school, however "along the way he got involved in drug scene". Obviously the "drug scene" is a politically correct description of an activity that brought Jeremy a three month sentence in a jail for "reckless driving and possession of methamphetamine". Drug dealer killed Jeremy's buddy "over a bad debt" (wonder what kind of debt that was, not educational loan, I suppose?) and two more of his friends' lives were "lost to violence".

Next stop, Nita 22, was "working these dumb jobs with the idea of saving money to go to college. But you never truly save enough money. You get a pile of money and just blow it." Of course it is the same story -- instead of saving Nita ran up her $10,000 credit card debt "shopping, eating out, and partying".

We are led to believe that the society failed Stella, Latoya, Jerman, Nita, and many other kids. Surely the society is responsible that our youths contract the same illness of rampant consumerism that brought the current economic crisis upon us, but should we forgo the notion that one bears one's responsibility for making bad decisions?

Kamenez complains that Yale's tuition went up from $31k to $39k in just seven years. "How can they justify it?" -- Kamenetz's father wonders. How about the most obvious answer -- because of the raising demand (you don't have to go to Yale instead of the Ohio State, and you don't have to buy Mercedes instead of Honda or Ford simply because all your friends or neighbors have done so). American consumerism is equally obvious in college education as it is in retail sales and real estate. The book quotes that "enrollment in higher education doubled from 7 million in 1970 to 14 million in 2002, while the total population of young people barely budged from 36 to 39 million".

From my own experience of a university professor (belonging to the generation currently below 35 Kamenez is addressing her book to), many of the current college students should not be in higher education in the first place. Liberal and socialistic writers will led you to believe that college education of as many students as possible is for "public good", but they cannot change a simple fact that many of them are simply not a "college material".

Kamenetz assesses, "I don't think anyone would be willing to say what percentage of America's population should ideally be earning a bachelor's degree, though we can certainly agree that the current number is too low". Too low? Can we "certainly agree"? Not if you read the book further, as 30 pages later Kamenetz confesses that "most economic analysts agree that the jobs of the next decade will require only slightly more educational credentials than today's do. In 2002, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 26.9 percent of the workforce needed a college degree to do their jobs. The share will rise by just one percentage point by 2012, says the progressive nonprofit Economic Policy Institute".

Why providing more people with college education is for public good then? Aren't all those multiplying college graduates supposed to compete against each other with many of them losing in the subsequent job competition to their frustration and despair? Isn't a better decision for a young person of below than average intellectual ability (and believe it or not, but half of the population is below that average) not to go to college and not to accumulate insurmountable amount of debt with no job prospects? Isn't the "degree inflation" promoted when herds of new college degree holders cannot find jobs? Isn't this what's causing spike in tuition prices of brand name colleges, since most of college degrees from second-tier institutions are not well regarded anymore by employers? (Kamenetz rightly notices that high school diploma is already not worth much these days.)

The book is nothing more than a disarray of stories lacking any meaningful analysis beyond liberal demagogy. There are blames to put and things to change in our present educational system and the way the society tends to its younger people, but the book offers little insight into it.