Book links high cost of college, credit card debt, low-wage jobs

"Generation Debt" expands on a series that freelance columnist Anya Kamenetz wrote for New York City's Village Voice newspaper. The title is a bit misleading, because it conjurers up visions of credit card and mortgage debt.

While these things figure peripherally, the twin demons of Kamenetz's story are crushing student loans and low-wage, no-benefit temporary jobs (reasonably described as "crap jobs").

College tuition and fees have grown significantly faster than inflation. State-funded institutions like Western Carolina University offer a refuge from this spiraling cost, and Kamenetz particularly champions community colleges as dollar-wise providers of the first two years of college.Taken at face value, college costs should be expected to absorb more of average household income than ever before.

This is likely the case, but it obscures reasons why colleges raise tuition. Those reasons include the fact that colleges have to cover their own rising costs and they want to create leeway to tailor financial aid packages to attract the most desirable students.

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