Editorial: Graduation brings a diploma, huge debt

Last update: February 9, 2008 - 6:26 PM

The "broke" phase of young adulthood is lasting longer for today's recent college grads than it did a generation or two ago, for one obvious reason: College debt loads are too heavy for starting salaries to support.

Fully three-fourths of Minnesota's college seniors graduate with a debt that averages $20,300, according to the Minnesota Private College Research Foundation's latest report. It takes a $36,900 salary to manage that much debt over a 10-year repayment period. Yet average annual income for Minnesota four-year college grads between ages 22 and 26 is $27,800.

That $9,100 gap translates to "broke," distorts career choices and delays young adults' transition to full self-sufficiency. Finding a way to narrow it is in the whole society's interest.

A green power(ed) couple

State Auditor Rebecca Otto and her husband, screenwriter Shawn Otto, were billed as "perhaps Minnesota's highest-profile environmental couple" in an article posted on Miller-McCune.com, the web journal of the California-based Miller-McCune Center for Research, Media and Public Policy.

Other contenders for that title have a lot to compete with. The Ottos' 30-acre farm and eco-friendly home at Marine on St. Croix are powered by a 15-kilowatt wind turbine atop an 80-foot tower. It generates about 80 percent of their electricity, and paid for itself after 10 years. The DFL state auditor is a sought-after speaker about green living, and has shown herself willing to lead impromptu tours of her home.

Better still, Otto is taking her green consciousness into her day job.

Last month, she initiated a local government survey that should produce a compilation of local government best practices for reducing energy consumption.

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