Dear Mr. Gross,

I have two words for you: EDUCATIONAL DEBT! Your editorial in Slate, "Sorry Pal, But You're Rich," failed to even mention the massive amounts of educational debt that hangs like a black cloud over the majority of "yuppies" that you refer to in your article. My wife and I, along with a very high percentage of young professionals bringining in a household income in the $200,000 - $250,000 range, had well over $325,000 between us in educational debt when we entered the workforce. This included student loans for undergraduate and professional schools as well as consumer debt racked up due to the inadequacy of student loans in covering all living expenses. Obviously, the interest rates for about half of the educational debt were in the 2-3% range, but the other half ranged anywhere from 7-20%.

My wife and I live in Chicago, a city with a moderate cost of living when compared with San Francisco or New York City, and we do not live high on the hog. We rent a modest apartment, eat out only once or twice per week, and generally stay in most of the time to watch movies or mourn our lost twenties. Yet, despite living modestly and paying as much as we can toward our educational debt, we still have many years to go before our assets will outweigh our liabilities. Most, if not all, of the debt that we accumulated was necessary to qualify us for the jobs that pay us the $250,000 combined salary that you consider the salary of a "rich" household, so you can't say that we did this to ourselves by overspending.

I'm voting Obama because I agree with many of his policies, including rolling back tax cuts for "rich" Americans. However, you're kidding yourself (as is Obama kidding himself) if you honestly believe that every household making $250,000, regardless of the debt they had to incur in reaching that household income, should automatically be considered "rich" immediately upon reaching that number. Perhaps educational debt should be figured into the analysis of who qualifies for higher taxes instead of completely ignored as it was ignored by you in the drafting of your editorial. By neglecting this important component of the story, you have brought at least part of the tidal wave upon yourself. Good luck--I hope you're wearing a snorkel.

Regards,

M. Wilson

I'll bet you went to all the expensive schools, too, when you could have gone to public universities, gotten the same education, and eventually earned the same amount without so much student debt.

You might not live high on the hog, but you educated yourself high up on it. That is an amazing amount of student debt you've collected for yourself.

Just to put it in prespective, the mean student debt in this country is about 11,000 bucks. That means you already spent 10 times the median EACH. So you aren't rich at 250K because you already blew all that dough before you even had it.

Oops, 17,000 bucks. My point holds.

um, you're apparently unaware that where you went to school pretty much determines your future income.

Not if you work hard and finish near the top of your public school.

nope. you'll never get a job in big-law out of a non-first tier law school....not without connections (in which case you don't care about the cost anyway). ditto for finance.

so, yes, Virginia residents can go to UVA law for cheap and be guaranteed a high paying job. no one else.

While it is true that student loan debt can be minimized by attending public schools (with the caveat that this only applies to the public schools in your state; many public schools charge private school-like tuition for out of stater students) for one's undergraduate education, the same is not true for professional and graduate schools. In many fields, including law, going to the best school you get into is extremely important, since there is strong competition for well-paying jobs, as well as for good jobs in the public sector. And even a public school is not necessarily cheaper--I went to my in-state law school, where I received a $10,000 a year tuition reduction compared to out-of-state students--and I still had to pay $25,000 a year. The same is often true for business or medical school.

Nonetheless, if you are netting $250,000 a year, you are in the upper-class, simply because you earn more than 98 percent of the people in this country. Whether you feel rich is a different question.

"so, yes, Virginia residents can go to UVA law for cheap and be guaranteed a high paying job. no one else."

Wouldn't you want to be a resident anyway if you were going to a college daily for a couple of years? Commuting from Manhattan every day might get somewhat wearing.

doofus. going to school in Virginia doesn't make you a resident for in-state tuition purposes.

or in any other state.

Well, I know a lot of people who racked up the debt going to Yale and Harvard, small private schools, etc.. Guess what? They ended up going to the same graduate schools and medical schools and law schools and business schools that state school people go to. So, while it is more expensive to go to professional and graduate level schools, and (I agree) it is more important where you go at that level, the undergraduate level doesn't really matter that much if you are a reasonably good and studious student because you end up in the same places with far less debt starting out.

Not true. Most of the time you can claim residency before or after the first year.

In fairness, you have to be a Virginia resident for a specified period of time (I believe it was two years when I was in school) before you can get in-state tuition. However, as an IT professional with student loans living in the DC metro area (Northern VA), I can say that if my household income, even before taxes, was $250,000, I'd feel pretty darn rich!

oh, YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT UNDERGRAD??????

gezzus, that's not how you get significant student loan debt...all of us posting about heavy student loan debt are mainly talking about grad and professional schools. heck, I went to undergrad on a scholarship, it's the grad and professional school stuff that put me 145K in the whole.

you don't (usually) make serious money out of undergrad...thought that was understood. I mean, in my peer group of early 30's Manhattanites it's both assumed that everyone makes six figures and that everyone has more than just an undergrad degree...