Is money the driving force to go back to school?

I decided to write about a different topic this time, and I chose the site that Janet mentioned, community.elearners.com. I picked the blog titled: Money is the root of all evil and the motivation for education? From the perspective of the blogger, Cajun, the government sees the students going back to school only so that they can make more money. Cajun does not agree with this. I think Cajun says it best, “Education is about living a better life, period.” (Cajun, 2010) I agree with both the government and with Cajun, I am going back to school to learn and grow so that I can better myself but I am also hoping to make more money as well, is that so wrong? I don’t think so. In the end, if I earn my degree I deserve the perks that come along with it, period.
Also, from Cajuns point of view, it seems that the government is out to get the people. I quote: “…An MBA graduate can expect to not begin seeing a positive return on investment for holding an MBA degree for an average of 3 years after earning the degree. The trouble with that is that this is almost exactly the window that the U.S. government uses to predict a loan default assuming that if a loan is not paid upon reliably within the following 36 months or so of graduation, that loan is classified as a default.” (Cajun, 2010) It would appear that the system is setup so the person will fail. I understand that loans need to be paid off in a timely manner, but take into consideration events like what we are experiencing now: high unemployment rates, struggling economy, etc., in situations like this…shouldn’t we give graduates an extended grace period before they have to pay off their loans?
Let’s say they stick with the above scenario, and the graduate can’t find a job due to the U.S. going into another recession. The graduate goes three years struggling to find a job and take care of himself/herself let alone pay off the student loans. No job equals no money, which means the bank that gave the graduate the loan doesn’t get paid, that’s definitely a problem. A possible solution, extend the amount of time needed to pay back the loan (maybe extend from 3 years to 4 or 5), especially in hard economic times.

Works Cited
Cajun. (2010). Money is the root of all evil and the motivation for education? Retrieved from My Bellevue University Experience: http://community.elearners.com/all_blogs/online_student_blogs/my_bellevue_university_experience/b/bellevue_university/archive/2010/08/18/money-is-the-root-of-all-evil-and-the-motivation-for-education.aspx