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Graduating Seniors and Panic Attacks

April 14, 2011, 8:00 am

By Nels P. Highberg

Scream and Shout Last year, I wrote a short post about things we could do for graduating seniors.  That post was prompted by nothing other than the fact that it was graduation season, and many of my students were in the midst of a job hunt.  This year, I have noticed something else: graduating seniors having serious panic attacks.  I first noticed this a month or so ago when a good student missed class and told me later that they had taken a look at their calendar the night before and had such a serious panic attack that they skipped my class the next day to see someone in counseling (yes, I am aware that I am using the plural “they” with the singular “student,” but I am trying to be vague about certain specifics).  When I mentioned this to one of my colleagues at another school, she said that she had encountered the same thing.  This time, though, the student had a panic attack in the middle of class, saying later that the prospect of graduating was much more stressful than they expected.

Though these events surprised me when they happened, they make perfect sense.  Graduating and looking for a job has always been exciting and stressful, but the economy has made finding a job even more stressful, and some of our students are feeling it intensely.  And I don’t mean they feel some stress.  I am talking about students having panic attacks that require medical care and much more than just a few deep breaths with a pep talk.

Though I planned to write this post a few weeks ago, it has become even more relevant for me in recent weeks.  Last week, another good student who has taken several classes with me and grown into someone I respect and admire missed class and later emailed about a panic attack because graduation just seemed too close.  And today, a student came to my office to apologize for being late to a class, saying, “I just didn’t think graduation would make me feel this stressed out.”

Usually, in these posts, we try to offer advice, but I admit I’m confused about what to do.  Yes, I can refer students to counseling, but our campus counseling office is pretty respected and well-known by students.  I try to tell them that things will be okay and speak about some of my struggles, but the words feel empty.  And I have been fortunate enough to know what I was doing next after I earned almost each of my degrees, so I cannot speak from their position.

Have you noticed similar increased levels of stress in your students that don’t seem to match what you have seen in the past?  What have you done or imagine you can do to help them out? Let us know in the comments, and hang in there.

[Creative Commons licensed image by Flickr user mdanys]

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  • jffoster

    “I am aware that I am using the plural “they” with the singular “student, …”

    You need not apologize for this–it is perfectly common English and has been for many centuries. You need apologize for this no more than you need apologize for using “you” as a singular talking to one person with a clearly plural verb such as ‘are, were, …’.

  • drnels

    Thank you, but as someone who teaches Professional Editing and has students follow a style guide that says the opposite (and I tell my students this style guide is the final determiner of what is “correct” in our course), I just wanted any of my students reading this to know that I was making a conscious choice. That, and some comments have been critical of such things in the past.

  • jffoster

    You’re welcome and I understand the need for consistent editing. But it might be worth considering changing your style guide. As to the commentators on these blogs who complain about such things, most of them know very little about how English actually works, let alone how languages and language in general work(s). When someone complains about “they” with a singular antecedent and is totally unaware that ‘you’ with singular antecedent still uses a plural verb, that tells you how much they really know about English. And thus how much their criticism is worth.

    Good luck, Professor Highberg

  • hheard

    I just had my first experience with this the other day. A student I don’t know well, and had advised briefly about graduate school applications last semester, dropped into a chair in my office and started crying. He didn’t get into grad school (I had warned him that he wasn’t prepared and should delay applications for one year) and now was faced with actually getting a job and figuring out what to do. I’ll admit, my first inclination was to tell him to grow up. Instead I just told him that he’ll have to apply again from his hometown, and gently pointed out that I am not the career center, so I can’t find him a job. Not sure what I should have done in that scenario.

  • http://twitter.com/lynneguist Lynne Murphy

    I’m actually surprised to read that this is perceived as a new thing–it’s something I’ve been seeing in the UK for several years now–if not most of a decade…

  • whsv1976

    Professor Highberg and J. F. Foster:

    With all the recent articles in the Chronicle of Higher Education and other academic media decrying the poor state of student writing, it is both ironic and unacceptable for you to bend the rules of written, Edited Standard English and rationalize the choice you have made. Your actions and justifications are tantamount to saying to students and the reading public, “Do as I say; not as I do.” I am sorry, colleagues, but “that dog won’t hunt,” to use the words of the late Ann Richards, one-time governor of Texas.

    By the way, J. F. Foster, I am fully aware of “how English actually works.” I have four earned degrees in English, all from fully accredited institutions; and I have been teaching English for twenty-five years.

    Regards,

    Donald Ray Jenkins, PhD
    Associate Professor of English
    Elizabeth City State University
    Elizabeth City, North Carolina 27909

  • drnels

    Ummm, but isn’t that the thing about style? Style has no rules. Grammar does. And I do allow my students to use they in the way I have except in our editing course not because it is a rule, but I am teaching them how to follow a style guide. And this is a point that style guides differ on. Ethically, I think protecting student identity here is more important than writing a sentence or two to follow a particular style guide.

    If the Chicago Manual of Style, Fowler’s Modern English Usage, the AP Stylebook, and AMWA style guide, the CME style guide, and MLA style guide, and others cannot agree on this point, I do not see why it is generating more concern than the content of the post.

  • rkgrkg

    Really? That’s the most important thing in this post?

    Nels, don’t respond to the trolls.

  • drnels

    Lynne, how do you respond to it? I am used to handling stressed students, but it’s the increased panic attacks that are new. Because they are so severe, they have me worried. Since this is a more common experience in the UK, which I find to be fascinating, how do you handle it?

  • http://ProfHacker.com George H. Williams

    Just a friendly editorial reminder that commenters should stick to the topic of the post: “Have you noticed similar increased levels of stress in your students that don’t seem to match what you have seen in the past? What have you done or imagine you can do to help them out? Let us know in the comments, and hang in there.”

    Any off-topic comments from here on will be deleted. Thank you.

  • supertatie

    Thank you! Professor Highberg is asking a serious question, and should be permitted a bit of vernacular (it’s not as if he was being vulgar). No wonder students are having panic attacks!

  • jffoster

    And I have a Ph D in Linguistics and have been teaching 40 years and have written, among other things, as a panelist on Ask a Linguist for 13 years. Perhaps you confuse how English works with how you think it ought work. Or confuse registers–Professor H was writing a blog posting, not a presidential address for the Royal Society of English Mavens.

  • supertatie

    It might be worth considering that all of the preparation, and career counseling, and “bridging the gap” we are trying to do could be making the problem worse, not better. We needn’t be blithe about the challenges of finding a job – but too much emphasis sets it up as what must sometimes feel like an insurmountable obstacle!

    I tell my students, “Don’t worry about what your first job is. Chances are, you won’t stay in it anyway. But it will be a valuable stepping stone to your next position. You will learn a great deal – about yourself. What you love, and what you hate. What you’re good at, and what you need or want to work at. You’ll meet people who become part of your network.”

    The analogy I draw for career paths is crossing a lake using stepping stones in a fog. You can’t see all the way across, so you step to the first one. From there, you will see others, and you will pick one, and step to that one. And from there, others will come into view. After a series of steps like that, you’ll see how far you have come, but it’s not a path you could have seen in advance. And that’s exactly as it should be.

    Telling them that the choice of their first job is not fraught with all kinds of cosmic significance does tend to take some of the pressure off.

  • quidditas

    I think part of the problem is that this advice has been effect since the 1990s, with the so-called “slacker generation,” who graduated into the c. 1990 recession and this kind of zig-zagging “career course” encapsulates the Gen-X experience.

    People who work at that gossip freak show, Gawker, have admitted that they do what they do because they got entry level publishing and journalism related jobs and discovered there was no career path in a radically downsized industry. And there are more terminal MA degrees out there than you can shake a stick at.

    For the past few years, students are graduating into an environment where taking the non-ideal first job and being pragmatic about it doesn’t seem like it’s going to pan out either. Getting a job at Staples can be a challenge these days.

  • jffoster

    Indeed. And “careers” and “career paths” have been greatly overemphasized. A great many baccalaureate graduates do not have careers and have not, at least in modern times. They have jobs. Leading most students to expect careers is a recipe for their disappointment.

  • chedie

    Get over yourself.

  • elrose

    One thing that you can do for these students is recognize that this is a transition time in their life. All graduating seniors will face stress, the life that they have known for the last four years is over. Some students have a very hard time with that change and may not have the coping skills to deal with the uncertainty the future brings. The current economic climate has raised that anxiety for many of those students. Many may be under family or economic pressure to find work quickly. In many cases these students need help developing a plan for the future. When students share this anxiety with college faculty or staff they need someone to listen. I suggest taking the time to listen to the students in panic mode and taking the time to walk that student or students over to the Career Center or the Counseling Center.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=15616139 Lesley Smith

    Faculty can be most constructive in these circumstances by explaining to students that their first job is not going to be their last, that it is much easier to find a better job when one is already working, and that if they have managed to juggle a couple of part-time jobs, and study and have a social life, they are going to be equipped for success, even if the shape that success takes initially is not students’ immediate dream, and even if it takes a little longer than first anticipated. And it might also be helpful if we tell students about those of our students, disappointed initially in their prospects after college , who have applied ingenuity and imagination to create dynamic careers.

    In these panic attacks reported, I think we’re seeing the consequences of all the dire predictions family, high schools and, yes, those of us in higher education, too, make about the consequences of not attending college and graduating with a degree. For the flip side to those dire predictions, for many students, is the belief that a successfully completed undergraduate degree guarantees instant prosperity and security. And if that is what you have believed since fifth or sixth grade, any graduation, even in a good economy, is terrifying.

    The result is that students who have achieved a great deal during their studies and time at college and university are seeing themselves as automatic failures when the high-paying, family friendly, high-high status job or grad. school does not materialized on graduation, failing family, failing in relation to the one or two friends who inevitable do make “the good job” on graduation, failing as individuals. Students who have been programmed to imagine a degree opens all door, and will forever save them from anxiety, are just not prepared for any economy.

    We need to protect our students, if we can, from the highs of overblown expectation and sometimes inflated self-worth, and the concomitant crashes in expectation and self-esteem, by trying, throughout higher education, to help students see that their contributions as human beings, not simply as cash-earning economic units, are the most valuable aspects of their lives.

  • halavais

    I don’t want to be “that prof,” but some of this may be that students haven’t developed the thick skins or resilience that they may have in previous generations, because we are just too easy on them. I don’t think we should be cruel, of course, but I do think that “retention” gets translated into an unwillingness to give failing grades to low performing students. And I’ve noticed an increased level of entitlement (“I think I want the course to be taught another way” or a complaint that study guides are not limited to the exact questions on an exam), that tends to mean that students are not in the habit of being challenged to do what they don’t want to do.

    For some of these students, a job hunt is the first opportunity they’ve ever had to actually fail.

    Again, I’m not advocating hazing, or Paper Chasesque stress for the sake of stress, but I think we have a responsibility to give students opportunities to fail, and to learn through failing. I should know: it becomes far less stressful the more of it you do.

  • quidditas

    “For the flip side to those dire predictions, for many students, is the belief that a successfully completed undergraduate degree guarantees instant prosperity and security. And if that is what you have believed since fifth or sixth grade, any graduation, even in a good economy, is terrifying.”

    Well, this is true. The heightened atmosphere around college admissions of the past 10 years or so in particular has promoted an education mythology that is in direct conflict with the facts on the ground.

  • morningsider

    I do remind students that the first job out of college is the starter job and that it does not determine their entire future.

    I also emphasize that they will have more than one career. I suggest they should anticipate this not because they will hate their first career or because there are no jobs in that field but because they may change and the world will change. At different life stages, they may find that what makes them happy also changes.

    Sometimes I cheerfully mention that I am on my third career, and that I’ve loved every one of them! Each career worked for me for that life stage. This may take some of the pressure off those students who believe they should have it all figured out at age 21.

  • tlgriffith18

    Maybe today we can award the AMERICAN MILITARY the honorary doctorate. They are the ones who accomplished this great deed.

  • wistful1

    Nice try in downplaying the President, but that’s completely inaccurate. The President is Commander-in-Chief, so he technically runs the military. It was the President’s decision to pull troops out of Iraq and place many more of them in Afghanistan. It was the President’s decision to continue the war in Afghanistan when many in his party argued that we should leave. It was the President’s decision to place special priority on getting Osama Bin Laden and assembling a secret CIA task force to do it. Finally, it was the President who gave the orders to have him taken out after they were finally able to confirm his location. So, the President is ALSO responsible for capturing Osama Bin Laden, whether you like it or not. It was a team effort
    and it wouldn’t have happened if Obama wasn’t on board–period.

  • wistful1

    They actually gave an honorary doctorate to Tommy Lasorda prior to Obama. I guess making history as the nation’s first black President is not that big of an accomplishment compared to playing baseball? And, I’m not really an Obama fan or much of a politician, but c’mon, that’s just ridiculous.

  • nsteiger

    Obama certainly wasn’t the first. Bill Clinton received at very least two: one from NH Community Technical College and another from Miami-Dade.

  • http://profiles.google.com/philly2naples Naples Man

    I am getting so VERY tired of pointing out that you get your education from TEACHERS and NOT SCHOOLS! Every college has good teachers; and sadly,… they have mediocre and poor ones as well. Also, degrees and faculty rank guarantee NOTHING. The only reliable way to find really good and truly inspirational teachers is to talk with former students who share your desire for education. AND, by now, EVERYONE should have discovered “Rate My Professors” set up by students nationwide so new students can look up the opinions of others on specific professors and specific schools.

    http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/

  • http://profiles.google.com/philly2naples Naples Man

    Considering the CO$T of college education these days, a set of community college associate degrees in various subjects might impress prospective employers MORE than a MA or PhD in only one subject. (Just something to think about!)

  • http://www.facebook.com/sheila.georgian Sheila Georgian

    this may be a very strange comment. . .  I graduated with a BA in Sociology from University of Michigan in 1973. It happened to be the year that Model Cities Project folded  – I was qualified to pass out food stamps in Detroit. Of course I was not very interested, so I found a job at a sewing supply store which I loved. I moved to AZ – quite an adventure! but only to find work in another sewing supply store. 37 years later I still find myself earning an income by sewing, making a decent income, and not very fulfilled. PLEASE follow your university educated “career path”, take advantage of recruiting, and don’t succumb to the lure of immediate wage fulfillment. PEACE, Sheila UM ’73

  • http://twitter.com/leesharpsd LEE Sharp

    AI and Stanford and Predictive Analytics….strong combination for FREE….

  • http://hiresteve.com/ Steve Foerster

    It’s an interesting reminder that you don’t pay tuition to actually learn thing, you pay tuition for the credit and the degree.

  • http://twitter.com/mindythomastcc Mindy Thomas

    What a fantastic offer. In this day and age, it’s pretty unbelievable. Thank you Dr. Thrun!

  • alaskacurt

    Great to see this course offered by Stanford. As a Stanford engineering student in the late 60′s I applaud the advances obtained by generating more communication among students. Even if there are 8,000 of them.
    . Good to give a nod to George Siemens who did one of the first Massive Open Online  Courses.

  • http://twitter.com/fuxi_ma Fuxi Ma, Ph.D, P.Eng

    GREAT!

  • http://twitter.com/wwwilson Dominic Wilson

    Awesome.

  • mathgirl

    I’d really love to do this, but I just don’t think I’ll have the time for it this semester…unless I stock up on red bulls.  Will this be offered in the spring and/or summer?

  • http://www.facebook.com/pallab.rath Pallab Rath

    I think this a great move by Stanford. Looking forward for it.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=505048285 Hrh ObaFemmie OduShort-tie

    Love To Be of This.

  • thinkhmm

    An article about this course at i-Programmer . info commented that “Peter Norvig is Director of Research at Google and co-author of the textbook Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, which is a central component of the course. The only downside is that you are strongly encouraged to have a copy of the textbook and this currently retails at at around $115 – but it is 1152 pages.”

  • old nassau’67

    “but they will receive grades for their assignments and exams, and those
    who complete the course online will get certificates created by the
    professors…..more than 8,000 people have asked to be put on an e-mail list.” Jeez – I had trouble grading the work of 100 – 125 per semester. This promise fulfilled I’d like to see. And make that number 8001.

  • Peter_Cao

    Sebastian Thrun mentioned in this article had deliberately trapped me for sake of a criminal suspect named Gabriele Scheler http://tysurl.com/mssgYn attention to the photo evidence in the context] in Stanford. People behind Thrun had systematically intruded my privacy which had molested many years of my life without an end. Google’s Eric Schmidt had threatened my life with a real murder case of Stanford student May Zhou (http://www.mayzhou.com) for sake of Sebastian Thrun during their fight with Stanford.

    Investigation from authorities after my tip confirms that it is people on Eric Schmidt and Sebastian Thrun (Gabriele Scheler as well)’s side who’s behind May Zhou’s murder case in order to threaten me and to terrorize Stanford. And the power on their side did try to plot a murder on me while I was in California. Before the case could be publicly clarified, neither Thrun nor Schmidt’s name is clear in such plotted murder. And so far, they dare not deny such accusations but pretend not seeing while publicly losing their faces.

    In the past, Thrun’s bosses had tried to get me work with Sebastian Thrun as a settlement of crimes from Thrun’s side, but I never compromised a bit, because as I told the investigators, that it is unfair to that innocently murdered girl May Zhou.

    It’s unfair to myself as well, as Eric Schmidt, Sebastian Thrun and Gabriele Scheler’s side did try to murder me while I was in California; Who wants to work with a professor who’s misbehaviors had caused the murder of an innocent student of his own school anyway.
    Eric Schmidt, Sebastian Thrun and Gabriele Scheler need to pay for their crimes.

    For reference please read Comments Part in
    http://read.bi/thrunscase
    http://bit.ly/schmidttt
    http://read.bi/schmitie
    http://tysurl.com/mssgYn attention to the photo evidence in the context

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=614156327 Sofia Bernadette Mari Carraze

    that is interesting

  • Peter_Cao

    The link in the above poster no longer works. Someone must fear my speech to the public. Here is a new link with updated statements about this case at [ http://tysurl.com/ssEost ]and also my argument about May Zhou’s in regard to this one case when someone said the case was officially closed [ http://tysurl.com/HsEERS ]

  • http://nathaniel-campbell.blogspot.com/ Nathaniel M. Campbell

    I’m shocked, shocked I say! to discover that the New York Times would allow its political agenda on reforming higher education financing (a topic they became ever so conscious of once the Occupiers on Wall Street brought it to their attention) to get in the way of accurate reporting!  Why, they seem to have taken a page right out of Fox News’ playbook–only report that which confirms our ideology.

  • alila5

    Although one shouldn’t make fact-checking any more lax when it conforms to an opinion, and that is, of course, a problem and needs to be addressed, there’s still quite a bit of ground to cover between lazy fact checking and outright and intentional untruths.

    I’m not trying to defend the NY Times, but let’s avoid hyperbole here. I’m still not sure why they haven’t had to change the name to Fox Opinion yet.

    (Sticking a book on climate change in the snow and mocking it isn’t lazy fact checking, it’s a lie, and I’m sure they’ve been notified bountifully that climate and weather are different things. It is another LIE to continually repeat that “in fact” temperatures have lowered in recent yeas, etc, etc.)

  • ffidura

    Before learning something about statistics, perhaps it would be helpful for the New York Times to learn something about journalism — or at least objective journalism.

  • 11119787

    It does seem that it has become fashionable to attack higher education in general. Perhaps it’s another manifestation of anti-intellectualism in America.

  • mkant69

    The 94% figure is actually the percentage of Bachelor’s degree recipients graduating with debt who still owe on their loans a year later, not the percentage who still owed money when they graduated. After being alerted to the article with the 94% figure on Sunday by a Chronicle of Higher Education reporter, I worked with the New York Times reporters to identify the nature of the error. It took several days for the US Department of Education to confirm that my diagnosis was accurate. The gist of the error was based on the B1OWAMT1 variable from the B&B survey. This variable has 61.8% non-zero, 3.8% zero and 34.4% missing. The reporters assumed that the 34.4% missing were nonrespondents when in fact they were the 34.4% from the B1BORAT variable who graduated with no debt. The reporters effectively calculated 61.8% / (61.8% + 3.8%) = 94.2%. The correct figure is the 65.6% from the B1BORAT variable. 

  • mkt42

    Bravo, the NYTimes needs to be held to the fire, not just for their statistical blunder but for their sensationalistic focus on a few ultra-high debt graduates who are not representative of most college students.  Blunder is the right word to use.

  • cwm4c

    “The Times’ reputation as the newspaper of record is a precious asset for the company and for the nation, and we hope they will guard it well.”

    That reputation disappeared years ago–one look at their editorial and financial boards would cause anyone to disavow that notion–especially the laughable thought that it is a National Asset!!

  • budlevin

    people make mistakes. that includes both reporters and scientists. that’s why in science we have peer review and a preference for independent replication. newspapers don’t have the resources to call upon that science does. many of them are struggling to stay afloat. 

    as far as impact, would the general public or politicians care whether the number were 65 or 94?  would it make any difference in the underlying discussion?  i doubt it. the discussion is not driven solely or even primarily by evidence. 

  • bhay9341

    Gee, now I understand everything.

  • mtyler

    This is not a unique incident of knowingly portraying falsehood as true by the New York Time.  The editors of the Times seem intent on conducting social engineering and sacrificing their integrity in the process.  The recent report on the majority of the nation supporting same-sex marriage from a survey with an “n” of 615 and no STDEV reinforces the comments of these authors are point out.
     
    I don’t know which should be the greater concern, that the New York Times, and other major news media, are unethically and intentionally depicting error as truth or that we, as a society, suck up this pabulum as gospel.

  • jimkraai

    Thanks for pointing out this error but so much more could be said.  Having been a CFO for over 20 years, I have personally observed numerous students purchasing cars, phones, etc. taking spring break or study aboard trips.  Students use as much aid as is available and never return any excess!
    Also, this type of reporting is not unique to higher education, but might be more prevalent in the business section where many articles distort the underlying issues.

  • 11218013

    Just another example of the innumeracy endemic among members of the fourth estate.  My favorite example: a story about some disease shared by 6% of men and 7% of women with the headline “13% of population afflicted by…”.  Are journalism students required to pass a math course?

  • richardtaborgreene

    Articles that seek out the most extreme examples of X without admitting that they did so, are dishonest.   The low quality of the New York TImes is evident in this and 10,000 other similar articles this past year.   Unfortunately for us all, the alternative sources and newspapers out there, are far far far worse.   Humanity as a whole is rather disgusting in this and myriad other ways.   That is one reason cats and dogs are so soothing—masters of indifference and masters of reciprocity respectively, something no newspaper can attain.  

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1600660751 Robert Oscar Lopez

    I read both the New York Times and the Fox News website. Both make mistakes and both present a range of viewpoints. Fox News has opinion shows like Hannity, but New York Times has an opinion editorial page that features Maureen Dowd and Paul Krugman.

    Recently the New York Times reported a poll showing Romney leading Obama by 2 percentage points, while Fox reported a poll showing Obama leading Romney by 9 points.

    Your mockery of Fox News is actually quite ill informed. 

  • kweber

    Indeed, and I hope that this brouhaha over it not being 94% doesn’t distract everyone from the fact that it is over 60%. That the NY Times selected the wrong statistical field doesn’t change the fact that there truly are a staggering number of people leaving college with a debt burden they are likely to be able to pay off quickly, particularly in this economy. And this is having some serious effects on their long term life planning.

  • 11290894

    Indeed, what a pity if the NY Times is going to seed…let’s hope not, but this story was scary along those lines.

  • http://twitter.com/cantubury kent norton

    figures don’t lie; liars do figure. i wonder if the writer just wanted to nail down the point that student debt is out of proportion to the amount that would be earned if only the students got a job. funny, one hell fire missile in Iraq costs about 50,000. so its its not guns and butter; yet guns  vs education

  • KristenFranks

    Everyone is missing the point, there is a serious student loan debt crisis brewing, and what is going to happen to the economy when that student debt bubble bursts?

    And what is going to happen to our national security, when so many people are in debt, and they can’t get a job due to the debt on their credit report, then they will have nothing to lose, and will care even less when they take what you have,  because they no longer care about what happens to them.

    I want to know how much the original amounts of the student loans are, minus the interest. Then I want to know how much of the 1 Trillion dollars is profit for banks, politicians, and our government.

    And if no ones knows that previously mentioned question, why not?

    Maybe we all should be calling our governmental representative and ask the important questions: Gov Representatives Address and Phone Directory: http://studentloandebacle.blogspot.com/

  • http://bonalibro.us Bonalibro

    People who watch FOX News are actually more uniformed than those who don’t watch the news at all. The New York Times once had Judith Miller, to its discredit, and its editorial page has Tom Friedman, David Brooks and Ross Douthat, in addition to Maureen Dowd and Paul Krugman, so it publishes a range of opinions, not just Liberal opinions. Can FOX News say the same? No it cannot. It is simply the propaganda arm of the Plutocracy and the GOP. 

    It’s your boosterism of FOX News that is actually ill-informed. 

  • http://bonalibro.us Bonalibro

    My goodness, look at all the troglodytes piling on the NYT over a calculation error and missing the larger point, as usual. “Get a job and pay your debts” is all you have to offer? With 20% unemployment, your comments add nothing to the conversation. 

    The problem is that these young people have a mountain of debt that they can’t pay off because because you stupid market fundamentalists sent all the jobs overseas, and inflated a credit bubble to keep the economy rolling. The bubble popped, and now you blame those who were forced to borrow the money because you cut back on Pell Grants and government loan programs so the banksters could make more money. Chickens coming home to roost. I look forward to the day when the bottom falls out from under you, too, and your hated government rescuers decide to make Lehman’s out of you.

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