SUMMARY

« The Student with three jobs » talks about jobs for students to financing their studies. Today, students have three to four jobs to pay studies like working as a lifeguard, a research assistant in a faculty or on weekends to work at the football stadium. In fact, studies are more and more expensive, it’s a huge pressure…and it’s not certain that they’re going to get a job.

“In Grim job Market, Student Loans are a costly Burden” talks about student loans. In fact, today it’s difficult for students to find jobs to earn more to cover the payments of loans. 

  

And “Student loans in America” talks about a program to promote education by President Lyndon Johnson in late 1965. He promises student loans to help young people enter business, trade and technical schools. But today, Obama add indebted students to the list of banks, car companies, and solar manufactures.  Johnson’s lending program was altered almost straight away.
This article shows evolution for education, student loans since 1965. 

Student loans in America The next big credit bubble?

Oct 29th 2011 | New york | from the print edition

IN LATE 1965, President Lyndon Johnson stood in the modest gymnasium of what had once been the tiny teaching college he attended in Texas and announced a programme to promote education. It was an initiative that exemplified the “Great Society” agenda of his administration: social advancement financed by a little hard cash, lots of leverage and potentially vast implicit government commitments. Those commitments are now coming due.

“Economists tell us that improvement of education has been responsible for one-fourth to one-half of the growth in our nation’s economy over the past half-century,” Johnson said. “We must be sure that there will be no gap between the number of jobs available and the ability of our people to perform those jobs.”

To fill this gap Johnson pledged an amount that now seems trivial, $1.9m, sent from the federal government to states which could then leverage it ten-to-one to back student loans of up to $1,000 for 25,000 people. “This act”, he promised, “will help young people enter business, trade, and technical schools—institutions which play a vital role in providing the skills our citizens must have to compete and contribute in our society.”

Almost a half-century later these modest steps have metastasised into a huge, federally guaranteed student-loan industry. On October 25th the Obama administration added indebted students to the list of banks, car companies, homeowners, solar manufacturers and others that have benefited from a federal handout.

Johnson’s lending programme was altered almost straight away. The intention of providing students with an education through “business, trade and technical schools” was expanded to include the full, imaginative panoply of American education, regardless of economic utility. Interest rates and terms have all been adjusted numerous times.

The result is a shifting, difficult landscape only barely understood even by insiders. For students, the task is that much larger. They must choose between an array of products, including subsidised and unsubsidised “Stafford” loans (named after a Republican senator) via the William D. Ford loan programme (named for a Michigan congressman), loans directly from the government, “Plus” loans (for parents of dependent children) and “Perkins” loans (named after a congressman from Kentucky), plus an array of private options.

On top of all this, there are choices about how to consolidate, restructure and pay the debts. Many students are understandably overwhelmed. Deanne Loonin of the National Consumer Law Centre has one client with $300,000 in debt from a failed effort to become an airline pilot. That liability could have been reduced by a better understanding of products.

Two things, however, are clear. The size of student debt is vast (see chart), and lots of borrowers are struggling. More than 10m students took out loans for the latest academic year, according to a report issued on October 26th by the College Board, a consortium of academic institutions. Almost a third of students graduating from college, and 69% of the ones dropping out, hold debt tied to their education.

The total amount of debt is staggering. The New York Federal Reserve Bank puts it at $550 billion, but includes a footnote in the “technical notes” section suggesting this may be an underestimate. Sallie Mae, the school-loan equivalent of the housing industry’s Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, reckons there are $757 billion-worth of outstanding loans. A bank heavily involved in the area says there is at least another $111 billion in purely private loans, and with new lending estimated in excess of $112 billion for this year alone, the total amount outstanding will surpass $1 trillion in the not-so-distant future.

In Grim Job Market, Student Loans Are a Costly Burden

They bought into the notion that if they went to college — never mind the debt — their degree would lead to a lucrative job. And repaying their student loans would never be a problem.

Skip to next paragraphBut the economic crisis has turned those assumptions on their ear as thousands of recent graduates have been unable to find jobs or are earning too little to cover the payments for loans that are sometimes as high as $50,000.

The result has been rising default rates for student loans. And unlike other debts, student loans cannot easily be renegotiated.

“You often hear the quote that you can’t put a price on ignorance,” said Ezra Kazee, who has $29,000 in student debt and has been unable to find a job since graduating from Winona State University in Minnesota last May. “But with the way higher education is going, ignorance is looking more and more affordable every day.”

About two-thirds of the students graduating from college next month, or an estimated 1.8 million, have taken on student loans to pay ever-rising tuition and room and board. The average cumulative debt among graduating seniors is about $22,500, according to FinAid.org, a Web site that specializes in financial aid.

Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FastWeb.com and FinAid.org, recommends that students follow a simple rule of thumb. “Do not borrow more than your expected starting salary for your entire undergraduate education,” he said. “If your starting salary is going to be $40,000, then you should borrow no more than $10,000 a year for a four-year degree.”

Gregory Westby, a 27-year-old designer who graduated from the School of Visual Arts in New York last May, is caught in the student loan trap. He has $150,000 in debt. He hasn’t been able to find a full-time job in graphic or set design, but is using his earnings from low-paying freelance jobs and working weekends at a fitness club to pay his rent. And he’s in the process of deferring his loans, which, together, cost $1,500 a month.

“Right now I’m surviving, but who knows when I’ll be able to start paying my loans back?” he said.

The New York Times Global

THE STUDENT WITH THREE JOBS

University fees are set to rise in England. But do the neighbours fare any better? Jasper Rees goes on a European tour and meets the students of Generation Skint ...

From INTELLIGENT LIFE magazine, September/October 2011
From the hilltop castle which looms over Heidelberg the view is captivating. The river Neckar thrusts through forested hills. On the north side looms the Heiligenberg, up whose flank slithers the so-called Philosopher’s Walk, sylvan haunt of many a strolling professor. At its foot are free-standing villas which speak discreetly of shockproof wealth. A gated bridge tiptoes over the gliding waters and leads to the old town with its elegant streets and important churches. What a gorgeous place to study.
Germany’s oldest university doesn’t come cheap. The cost of living is roughly €10,000 a year, not including tuition fees. Stefanie Schmidt (not her real name), a 25-year-old student with thin-framed specs and long auburn hair, is nearing the end of her studies in biology and English. Such is her parents’ income that she did not qualify for a BAfÖG, or student loan, but her parents have been unable to give her further financial support, and so she has had to work. A lot.
“I have three to four jobs to pay for it,” she says. “I was working as a lifeguard, I’m a research assistant in the faculty library, and on weekends I work at the football stadium.” She doesn’t officially list the fourth job—private teaching—because that’s cash in hand, part of the campus black market. And she still can’t afford Heidelberg rents, so she and her boyfriend live 45 minutes away by train. Thanks to a niggardly law, German students have to pay extra if they earn more than €400 a month. Nor can they work more than 20 hours a week. “You need really good time management,” she adds. “I really have to calculate every month how often I can work so that I won’t reach the limit.” Students of recent eras have been labelled Generation X or Y; this lot look like Generation Skint.
One might think that Germany would be good at this sort of thing. In fact its system for funding education is so confused that it can stand as a microcosm for Europe as a whole. Until the middle of the last decade, tuition fees did not exist in Germany. Then they were introduced by some states, mostly those where the Christian Democrats and Liberals were coalition partners. “There was a general understanding that many universities are underfinanced,” says Dr Thomas Pfeiffer, a law professor in his 50s who is also Heidelberg’s vice-rector for international affairs, “and it was thought to be a good idea to have students or their parents take some responsibility for financing the programmes, and also to put an incentive on the students to study more efficiently, more industriously than some were thought to.” Now only three of Germany’s 16 Länder are sticking with tuition fees. Others have opted for payment after graduation. And some have no fees at all. It’s a Land lottery.
In the state of Baden-Württemberg, where we are now, there is a remarkable law based on a kind of birth-order roulette. “I am lucky,” explains Faris Bidier, a lanky 22-year-old in his third year of a BA in English and geography. “I am a third child and only the first two children have to pay in Baden-Württemberg.” On top of which his parents are wealthy enough to pay both his rent and a monthly allowance. No wonder he has looked for work only “half-heartedly”. It’s possible that the Land’s new government will be abolishing tuition fees anyway.
After a tour of the old town on a warm early evening, we have repaired to a subsidised student bar where the sun slants into a large grassy courtyard. Julia Klein (pictured above), in her first year of a master’s in English, could have had her tuition free too. All she had to do was stay the other side of the river. “The state where I am originally from, just across the Rhine, doesn’t have tuition fees,” she says. “I have friends who study there because it’s free, although some universities are rubbish.” But she wanted a prestigious education in Heidelberg. Britain is not the only country where some universities are more equal than others.
Her parents’ income is such that she passed the forensic annual means test for a BAfÖG, so Baden-Württemberg picks up half her tuition fees. The rest she has to pay back after a decade and only once her earnings reach a certain level. To make ends meet—rent in Heidelberg is around €300 a month, but can be much more—she works in the library and also does web design and private tuition. “I’ve been in debt for my entire time as a student,” she says. “Even though I have a job, I am in the red every month. It’s a huge pressure. You’re not going to die, you’re not going to starve. But it’s not certain that you’re going to get a job.” Like Stefanie and Faris, Julia has set her sights, with a touch of pragmatism, on the teaching profession. No matter who pays, people will still need educating.

Culture and Identity _ Speaking activity 1 _ French Icons

The top eight cultural icons from France for, Constance and I, are:
1.The monuments of Paris like Eiffel Tower, Louvre, Montparnasse, Montmartre...
2.The French food like cheese, bread and wine.
3.For Sport, there are personalities like Tony Parker for Basket-ball, Sébastien Chabal for Rugby.
4.For music there are Jhonny Halliday, Michel Polnareff
5.For cinema, there are a lot of people who represent the country like Marion Cotillard, Dany Boon...
6.The castles of the Loire are also an icon in the France's history.
7.Fashion It's very important to France with Chanel, Hermes, Dior...
8.The climate is different according to region like mediterranean climate in south of france, oceanic climate in ouest of france and other climate.

We haven't an ordre to classify this icons but for us, they are the most representatifs of french culture.

Culture and identity

How would you summarise the main message of the extract?

The article is about the notion of the cultural identity.
there is a individual cultural identity in the same country. This notion not depends on the country, is not static.
In fact, every person can change country with interactions, commerce, jobs...or his life!

Moreover, in the same country, there is a interaction with difference culture. There is a communication, differences questions.

It's important to share with people to understand the cultural identity!