For many students, the decision to attend Bowdoin is much more than a four-year commitment. Instead, for these students, graduation brings on a new type of commitment to their Bowdoin education as they begin the process of paying off their student loans.
A significant portion of the Bowdoin student body has taken out either federal or private loans to help pay for the ever-rising cost of a college education. Last year, 220 students, over 50 percent of the Class of 2007, graduated with debt in the form of student loans. Though the actual percentage of Bowdoin graduates who find themselves unable to pay off their loans is below two percent, the knowledge of looming loans payments is concerning for many Bowdoin students.
Stephen Joyce, director of financial aid at the College, said that the pressure of student loans usually does not hit students until graduation, when the necessity of paying back loans can influence a student's post-graduation plans.
"I am already calculating how I will pay off my loans," said Will Donahoe '08. "I want to go to graduate school, but I need to get a leg up on my loans first."
Kristen van der Veen '07 shared her post-graduation experience with the Orient, noting that paying off her loans has been "manageable, but definitely difficult."
She also remembers feeling compelled to find a job immediately after graduation.
"I guess I just didn't have the opportunity to think of other options; taking a month off to travel or relax was not an option. I had also been interested in a masters program for after graduation, but when it came down to it, I could not justify spending $60,000 versus making money," she said.
Donahoe views his loans as a good investment in the future and believes that they will be "worth it in the long run, despite being very difficult in the short term."
However, Tanya Farber '10 disagrees. After giving up a full scholarship at a state university to attend Bowdoin, Farber thinks that her choice of Bowdoin was a "moment of weakness," in which she got caught up in the romantic idea of a liberal arts education. After her first year at Bowdoin, Farber is skeptical that her education at Bowdoin is worth the financial burden and the consequences it will have on her plans after graduation. She said she fears not being able to attend graduate school and worries about her ability to pay off her loans in the future because her major is not one that usually leads to high-paying jobs after graduation.
Joyce agreed that the "great tragedy" of student loans is the potential effect they can have on a student's immediate plans for the future. He worried that concerns over loans will deter students from going into the very fields that the College's commitment to the "Common Good" encourages students to embrace, such as teaching, social service work, and non-profit work.
However, Joyce is also optimistic that there will be improvement in the future on the issue of student loans. He said that that the classes of 2009, 2010, and 2011 will "generally benefit" from the recently passed "College Cost Reduction and Access Act," which will cut the interest rates on students loans by half over the next five years. However, the act will not directly affect the Class of 2008, unless students plan to take out loans for graduate school in the future.
"It is a good step, but more needs to be done," Joyce said.
In the mean time, Joyce is hopeful that the Capital Campaign will increase Bowdoin's endowment and enable the College to provide more grants to students in the future.
Joyce also said that the recent decision of Amherst College to completely replace student loans with grants could place a newfound pressure on other liberal arts schools to follow suit.
"It could create a two-tiered system" among top-ranked schools, he explained, with the colleges that offer loan-free educations coming out on top. Though Davis is skeptical about the possibility of this occurring in the near future, he acknowledged that Bowdoin would not rule out the possibility.
"Bowdoin would obviously like to be on that top tier," he said.