Murphy's Law

Perhaps the only thing more alarming than the rise in college tuition and student debt is the apathy about this issue among older folks who no longer face the problem.

Just a few weeks ago, a story in the Business Journal shined a brief light on the ever-rising problem of student debt. The average college graduate nationally has $23,200 in debt, the paper reported. In Wisconsin, it’s slightly lower, the paper found, at $21,386.

Nationally, the average level of debt rose by an incredible 25 percent over the previous year and has doubled in little more than a decade, as a story in the Wall Street Journal reported.

The debt has risen because college tuition has gotten so prohibitively expensive: Year after year, going back to at least the 1970s, tuition has continued to rise much faster than the rate of inflation.

Wisconsin was once somewhat insulated from this trend, as the UW System, particularly for in-state students, was less expensive than in other states. But as I noted in a column two years ago, the average tuition and fees for public college students in Wisconsin actually passed the national average in 2007-2008.

For a state that had once prided itself on offering access to college for any student who qualified, that struck me as a scandal. Ho-hum, responded blogger and Marquette Law School professor Rick Esenberg; must have been a slow news day, he chided.

Esenberg, of course, makes his living off the students who are sinking into ever-deeper pits of debt. Indeed, Marquette has some of the state’s most indebted students, and ranks second among 17 colleges The Business Journal checked on: The average MU graduate leaves owing $30,563. I’m guessing the average debt level is a lot higher for those who go on to attend MU's law school.

This, of course, is the average level of debt. The Wall Street Journal offered grim tales of students owning as much as $175,000 by the time they graduate. It cited a survey of graduates which found that 39 percent projected it would take them 10 years to pay off the debt, while many said they were delaying buying a home or having children because of the debt level.

Most people assume that affirmative action softens the blow of rising tuition for minority students. In fact, low-income and minority students are more likely to have higher debt levels. U.S. Department of Education statistics show that black students are 19 percent more likely to have student debt and 26 percent more likely than whites to have borrowed more than $20,000. Low-income and minority students are also more likely to drop out of college, and their inability to cope with the costs is a key cause, some experts say.

Two key reasons for the continuing climb in student debt is that states have gradually cut back the percentage of public college costs they pay for, and grants for students from the federal government have also not kept up with rising costs. But because not enough college students vote, and because older voters don’t care so much about the issue (as I’ve learned from readers’ comments when I write about this), politicians can cut these programs more easily than others. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

Downtown Movie Theater in Wrong Place?

Last week, the Marcus Corp. announced its intention to build a movie theater downtown. I’m hesitant to take issue with its decision, as the company has been dragging its feet on a

Marcus has indicated that the multiple-screen movie house would be part of the proposed 10-story office tower to be located on the Milwaukee River and between Knapp and Cherry streets. Bauman argues that a better location would be the more centrally located empty lot at Fourth and Wisconsin, just across from the Midwest Airlines Center.

College students are a prime audience for movies, and a theater on Wisconsin Avenue would be just a short bus ride away for Marquette students, who already take the bus to hang out at the Mocha coffee house on Plankinton and Wisconsin, Bauman notes. His suggested location would also be right across the street for convention-goers (and not far from the major hotels they are likely to stay at). Knapp and Cherry, by contrast, is about eight blocks from Wisconsin Avenue.

That said, it’s hard to imagine a downtown theater wouldn’t draw a crowd, no matter where it's located. With almost all of the area's movie houses in the suburbs, a downtown theater would be a closer location for a huge number of Milwaukeeans. Marcus, it seems, is already prepared for this, and has announced the theater will be “very upscale.” So maybe college students – or less well-to-do city residents of any kind – won’t be wanted at this theater. Is that what “very upscale” means? The Marcus Corp. has promised more details. We’ll see.

The Buzz

-Once upon a time there was a nice man named Oscar Perez who worked for the UW-Milwaukee Office of Neighborhood Relations: He drove around in a UWM van on weekends trying to head off rowdy student behavior. He also rang doorbells and followed up with landlords whose tenants created a nuisance. His efforts were much appreciated by homeowners in the area, who were upset to learn, in a message from Tom Luljak, vice chancellor of University Relations & Communications, that Perez has been “assigned to other duties.” Alas, those duties were not spelled out, but Luljak assured people that “neighborhood relations remains a priority at UWM.” Luljak tells me this is a personnel issue and he can’t discuss the details behind the reassignment.

-Lisa Kaiser, assistant editor at the Shepherd Express, wrote to demand a retraction and apology for the item in my last column suggesting she wrote a piece of fake news. I do agree that her story was well-done factually, insofar as it told us about a little-known group called the Democrats for Education Reform, which is lobbying for the mayoral takeover of Milwaukee Public Schools. But the story then took a leap from these facts to claim this group was “a driving force behind the mayoral takeover” and that it would lead to the privatizing of MPS. That struck me as unproven nonsense. Still does.

-In past columns, I heaped scorn on the huge tax subsidy given to Cabela’s by the Washington County Board of Supervisors. One rationale for the handout was that Cabela’s would draw other retailers to the area. But as the ever-resourceful JS reporter Tom Daykin has found, that turned out to be a fish story: few retailers have been attracted.

-Will charging for content save newspapers? It hasn’t for Newsday, Pressroom Buzz columnist Erik Gunn notes.

–Just how patient are Brewers fans, and would they buy Ryan Braun's cologne? The Sports Nut considers.