An increasing number of college graduates are choosing careers for money instead of following their passions, The Christian Science Monitor reported in March.
The problem lies in the debt that many students incur while attending school. Because they owe so much, students are turning away from low-paying public sector employment and their true passions.
Individual student debt is increasing at the same time as more students are taking out loans to pay for college. According the U.S. Department of Education, the number of undergraduates taking out loans increased from only 46 percent in 1993 to 67 percent in 2003. The 2002 Nellie Mae National Student Loan Survey found that the average undergraduate was in debt $18,900, up from an average of $11,400 in 1997.
Nellie Mae also found that debt has had a \significant impact"" in the career choices of 17 percent of undergraduates.
However, the problem appears to be less severe in Wisconsin. According to Rollie Weeden, UW-Madison assistant director of financial services, graduating UW-Madison seniors with loans in 2003 had an average debt of $16,395, approximately $2,500 below the national average.
Nellie Mae reports that nationally, graduates with law or medical degrees have an average of $91,700 of accumulated debt from all years. Weeden said UW-Madison law graduates have an average debt of $58,724, roughly one-third less than the national average.
However, graduate student debt is not as simple as the numbers imply. Jane G. Heymann, assistant law school dean for career services, said the larger problem is a lack of jobs, not the salaries offered. In Wisconsin, the public defender and district attorney's offices have a starting salary of about $40,000, Heymann said.
""You're not going to get rich, obviously, but it's not dramatically lower than many jobs in the private sector,"" Heymann said.
Heymann explained that while the salary for public service lawyers is OK, it is increasingly difficult to get hired for these positions. Instead, many law graduates are seeking temporary work, or going to the private sector or out-of-state.
""We have plenty of students who would give their right arm to work for the public defender despite how much law school debt they have, but they can't get a job offer because the public defender doesn't have any money to hire any more people, even though they're busy,"" he said.
