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GREENSBORO — Tom Dempster thinks about it often — nearly $80,000, the equivalent of a small house or a really nice Mercedes-Benz, he says. It’s what he owes in student loans.

“It’s already mortgaging my brain and, basically, at this point mortgaging my identity,” he said, “because I have to pay for ... what I’m aspiring to, what I’m trying to be, what I’ve studied for 12 years to become ... 

“I intend to get rid of that (debt), so that I can focus on other things.”

Dempster is not the only student facing graduation buried in debt. Rising tuition rates and dwindling financial support from state and federal governments have driven many students to take out loans to fill the gap.

“The cost of college increases faster than just about anything else besides, maybe, health care costs,” said Edie Irons of the Institute for College Access & Success, a California-based nonprofit that advocates for affordable higher education.
National data show student loan debt has been on the rise in recent years. Two-thirds of four-year college graduates from the class of 2008 left school with student loans, according to the Institute’s Project on Student Debt. The 2008 figures are the most recent available.

The average amount of their debt: $23,000.

While the cost of college has increased, state support has not. State governments, responsible for funding public colleges, are squeezed and, as a result, are not putting as many resources into higher education.

The state of the economy is figuring into the lack of funding now; at other times, governments have just had different priorities, Irons said.

In brighter days, government grants paid for a bigger chunk of a student’s college education.

Thirty years ago, the maximum Pell Grant, given to students from low-income families, covered 77 percent of the average cost of attending a public, four-year college, Irons said.
In the 2009-10 academic year, it covered about 35 percent.

“So the grant funds available both on the federal level and at the state level has not kept pace with the rising costs,” Irons said.

Those circumstances leave loans as the only option for many students. Dempster, 29, earned his bachelor’s degree from UNCG and his master’s from the University of Texas. This month, he will receive his doctorate in music composition, also from the University of Texas.

“I really have no one else to blame but myself for taking out loans,” he said, “but I came from a background where my dad worked in retail and my mother was a part-time librarian.

“Together, they were lucky to make $30,000, and there was a family of five involved.”

Dreams deferred

For many people, debt affects more than just their wallets.

Graduates who amass large loans delay building savings, getting married, having children, buying homes and making other investments in their communities, said Chris Lindstrom, higher education program director with the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. Instead, the first decade after graduation is often spent paying off debt, she said.

Debt is also deterring some of the brightest students from taking on some of the jobs that benefit society most.

High-demand, yet low-paying, professions such as teaching and working as a public defender don’t offer enough compensation to pay off five- and six-figure debts.

“People want to do public-service jobs,” said Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of the financial aid resource website, www.finaid.org. “There’s a lot of interest among college students on doing something that gives back to the community.”

There’s an indication that the longer students delay their dreams, the more impossible it seems to fulfill them, Lindstrom said. “I think it also kind of undercuts their ambition.” 

Paying it down    

Jabari Sellars is a week away from graduation, but he’s already planning how he’ll pay down the student loan debt that helped finance his four years at Guilford College.
He has one job lined up, but he plans to take on a second soon.
And Sellars will be moving back home with mom and dad for a year — rent-free, their graduation present to him.

He’ll have to cut spending on his two guilty pleasures — comic books and junk food — and factor in the costs of gas and groceries.

“My total loan debt is probably $25,000,” he said.

Sellars, an English major, received some small grants and scholarships, mainly from his church and community, but also had to use loans to finance his education.

He was turned down by his first choice, UNC-Chapel Hill.

Guilford College recruited him for his abilities on the football field, but the private school doesn’t offer athletic scholarships.

Sellars, 22, is not the first in his family to have education debt. He has an older brother who worked one full-time and two part-time jobs to pay off his debt.

Sellars’ brother helped him create a budget. He hopes to wipe away his debt with two jobs,  instead of three, all while working toward other goals, such as purchasing a car and a house.

“I think it’s realistic if I work hard enough, but I wouldn’t dare bank on it,” Sellars said.

Ashlie Doyle, 21, also an English major at Guilford College, could defer her loans because she’s heading back to school.

But she doesn’t want to exercise that option just yet.

Doyle had a change of heart about her career. She plans to enroll in a certified nursing assistant program immediately after graduation to prepare her for the registered nursing program at Wake Technical Community College in Raleigh.

She also has transferred her employment from a local PetSmart to a store in Raleigh, and she’ll use some of that money to chip away at her debt.

Family members helped Doyle pay her debt down to just below $16,000.

Now, Doyle said, “I’d rather not have it hovering over me.”

No easy solution

While doing independent-study work toward his doctorate degree, Dempster took a teaching position at UNCG.

He had hoped to make a dent in his debt. But, slowly, his teaching load decreased and as a result, so did his income.

“And I said, 'OK, I’m going to reallocate this $200 a month to making sure I don’t die of starvation.”

He lost his adjunct position altogether last year, a casualty of the state budget crisis.
Dempster hopes to find a teaching position before the loan repayments come due in November.

He’d like to be on the tenure track in five years and, in 30 years, to be chairman of a college music department.

In the meantime, he works 45 to 50 hours a week at Edward McKay Used Books to pay his living expenses.

In his free time, he writes music.

Contact Jonnelle Davis at 373-7080 or jonnelle.davis@news-record.com