Many college graduates have high expectations for a job right out of college. The reality is, many of those expectations won’t be met.

“In today’s economy, recent college graduates are taking the first job that offers a paycheck – not necessarily the job their college education prepared them for,” said Baylor graduate Kevin Blair.

“The current job market has forced people to find refuge in a collegiate setting, only to accumulate debt that must be paid off,” said Arlington sophomore Kacie Evans.

“Paying thousands for a college education and then working at Burger King to pay it off is a scary thought,” Malia Gandt, a Flower Mound sophomore, said.

Gandt is currently working at a department store to start paying off the debt.

Coming out of college, many students do not look for their dream jobs but rather any job to start paying off college debt.

Up to 24 percent of students say that debt has affected their career choices. With rising tuition costs, students are finding the need to just make money, rather than practice a vocation passionately.

Former Baylor student Andy Eagan dropped out after a semester in order to work a paid internship of $100 a week. With his piled up debt from the semester, Eagan knew college wasn’t the place for him.

Eagan eventually found a job working a contract job with at a production company, which wasn’t connected to his field of study in education.

“The job is a great opportunity, but it really just pays the bills,” Eagan said,

“The company can keep me as a contractor, but with no future of promotion.”

Rutgers University found that since 2006, only 51 percent of graduates went into full time employment coming out of college. “Opportunities available for college graduates in a slowly increasing job market are dim,” said USA Today college writer Eliza Collins.

Stories similar to Gandt and Eagan’s are seen across the nation. Students go to college and exit with debt that forces them into a paying job that may not match their degree.

There are success stories, however.

Jason Wilson graduated from college with internships and work experience in the field backing him up. As a business major with a focus on production work, Wilson was set to go to work full time as a production manager with a touring company.

Internship and career counseling provided by colleges provide a way to network and secure a future in a specific job market.

Evans said she was confident in finding a job because of the career-counseling services at Baylor.

“They really get to know your interest and match you up with amazing contacts who want to meet you,” Evans said.

“Graduates who found a job they studied for and had an internship before leaving college made 15 percent more that those who did not intern,” Collins said.

“It is rare for jobs to fall into your lap, so working hard and networking is the fastest way to achieve your goals,” Baylor graduate Clayton Hill said.

High school and college counselors are now being trained to guide students on career paths that will better guarantee a job upon graduation.

Dallas student counselor Kimberly Trask is also steering her students to apply forinternships and practicum programs.

She said she believes that building a strong portfolio is the key to finding employment in a field of study after graduation.

Participating in internships and other activities related to the job a student is going to school for can help that student find a job coming out of college.

Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee holds up a a gay marriage bill after signing it into law outside the State House in Providence, R.I., Thursday, May 2, 2013. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Rhode Island on Thursday became the nation’s 10th state to allow gay and lesbian couples to wed, as a 16-year effort to extend marriage rights in this heavily Roman Catholic state ended with the triumphant cheers of hundreds of gays, lesbians, their families and friends.

Gov. Lincoln Chafee signed the bill into law on the Statehouse steps Thursday evening following a final 56-15 vote in the House. The first weddings will take place Aug. 1, when the law takes effect.

“I’ve been waiting 32 years for this day, and I never thought it would come in my lifetime,” said Raymond Beausejour, a 66-year-old gay North Providence man who has been with his partner for 32 years. “For the first time in my life, I feel welcome in my own state.”

After Chafee signed the bill, the hundreds of people who gathered on the Statehouse grounds erupted into cheers as a chorus sang “Chapel of Love.”

“Now, at long last, you are free to marry the person that you love,” Chafee told the crowd.

The day was bittersweet for Deborah Tevyaw, whose wife, state corrections officer Pat Baker, succumbed to lung cancer two years ago. Months before she died, Baker, relying on an oxygen tank, angrily told lawmakers it was unfair that Tevyaw wasn’t considered her wife in Rhode Island despite their marriage in Massachusetts.

“I’m ecstatic, but sad she’s not here to see this,” Tevyaw said. “I’m sure she’s watching, but she’s not here next to me. Before she died, she told me, ‘I started this, and now I’m leaving it in your hands.’ We worked hard for this. There were petitions, door knocking, phone calls. I think people decided, ‘just let people be happy.’”

Once consigned to the political fringe, gay marriage advocates succeeded this year thanks to a sprawling lobbying effort that included support from organized labor leaders, religious clergy, leaders including Chafee and Providence Mayor Angel Taveras and hundreds of volunteers. Their efforts overcame the opposition of the Catholic church and lawmakers including Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed, who voted no but allowed the issue to come to a vote anyway.

Supporters framed the issue as one of civil rights, arguing in daylong legislative hearings that gay and lesbian couples deserve the same rights and protections given to opposite-sex married couples. The Catholic church was the most significant opponent, with Bishop Thomas Tobin urging lawmakers to defeat what he called an “immoral and unnecessary” change to traditional marriage law.

On Thursday, Tobin repeated his opposition, writing in a letter to the state’s Catholics that “homosexual acts are … always sinful.”

“Catholics should examine their consciences very carefully before deciding whether or not to endorse same-sex relationships or attend same-sex ceremonies,” Tobin wrote. “… To do so might harm their relationship with God.”

The Rhode Island legislation states that religious institutions may set their own rules regarding who is eligible to marry within the faith and specifies that no religious leader is obligated to officiate at any marriage ceremony and no religious group is required to provide facilities or services related to a gay marriage. While ministers already cannot be forced to marry anyone, the exemption helped assuage concerns from some lawmakers that clergy could face lawsuits for abiding by their religious convictions.

Under the new law, civil unions will no longer be available to same-sex couples as of Aug. 1, though the state would continue to recognize existing civil unions. Lawmakers approved civil unions two years ago, though few couples have sought them.

Delaware could be the next state to approve gay marriage. Legislation legalizing same-sex marriage has narrowly passed the Delaware House and now awaits a vote in the state Senate.

Advocates in Rhode Island say that while they’re proud the state is the 10th to legalize gay marriage, they expect other states to follow quickly as support for same-sex marriage grows around the country. According to a November Gallup poll, 53 percent of Americans support giving gay and lesbian couples the right to marry, up from 27 percent in 1996.

Rep. Frank Ferri, D-Warwick, who lobbied for gay marriage before becoming a lawmaker himself, recalled that years ago he asked a sitting lawmaker if he would consider supporting same-sex marriage. “He said, ‘I’ll pour gasoline on my head and light myself on fire before that bill passes,’” Ferri recalled. That has changed, said Ferri, who is gay. Ferri said he hopes House Speaker Gordon Fox — who is gay — can marry him and his partner on Aug. 1, the day the new law takes effect, which also happens to be the couple’s 32nd anniversary.

“Today a dream has come true,” he said. “No more hiding in the shadows. No more being ashamed of who we are.”

In this April 26, 2013 photo provided by OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, Ill., Darryl Warren and Lee Young-mi visit their 2-year-old daughter, Hannah Warren, in a post-op room at the Children’s Hospital of Illinois in Peoria after having received a new windpipe in a landmark transplant operation on April 9, 2013. Hannah was born in South Korea without a windpipe but received a new one made from her own stem cells. She is the youngest patient ever to get the experimental treatment. Doctors announced Tuesday, April 30, 2013 she is recovering and likely will lead a normal life. (AP Photo/OSF Saint Francis Medical Center, Jim Carlson)

CHICAGO — A 2-year-old girl born without a windpipe now has a new one grown from her own stem cells, the youngest patient in the world to benefit from the experimental treatment.

Hannah Warren has been unable to breathe, eat, drink or swallow on her own since she was born in South Korea in 2010. Until the operation at a central Illinois hospital, she had spent her entire life in a hospital in Seoul. Doctors there told her parents there was no hope and they expected her to die.

The stem cells came from Hannah’s bone marrow, extracted with a special needle inserted into her hip bone. They were seeded in a lab onto a plastic scaffold, where it took less than a week for them to multiply and create a new windpipe.

About the size of a 3-inch tube of penne pasta, it was implanted April 9 in a nine-hour procedure.

Early signs indicate the windpipe is working, Hannah’s doctors announced Tuesday, although she is still on a ventilator. They believe she will eventually be able to live at home and lead a normal life.

“We feel like she’s reborn,” said Hannah’s father, Darryl Warren.

“They hope that she can do everything that a normal child can do but it’s going to take time. This is a brand new road that all of us are on,” he said in a telephone interview. “This is her only chance but she’s got a fantastic one and an unbelievable one.”

Warren choked up and his wife, Lee Young-mi, was teary-eyed at a hospital news conference Tuesday. Hannah did not attend because she is still recovering from the surgery. She developed an infection after the operation but now is acting like a healthy 2-year-old, her doctors said.

Warren said he hopes the family can bring Hannah home for the first time in a month or so. Hannah turns 3 in August.

“It’s going to be amazing for us to finally be together as a family of four,” he said. The couple has an older daughter.

Only about one in 50,000 children worldwide are born with the windpipe defect. The stem-cell technique has been used to make other body parts besides windpipes and holds promise for treating other birth defects and childhood diseases, her doctors said.

The operation brought together an Italian surgeon based in Sweden who pioneered the technique, a pediatric surgeon at Children’s Hospital of Illinois in Peoria who met Hannah’s family while on a business trip to South Korea, and Hannah — born to a Newfoundland man and Korean woman who married after he moved to that country to teach English.

Hannah’s parents had read about Dr. Paolo Macchiarini’s success using stem-cell based tracheas but couldn’t afford to pay for the operation at his center, the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. So Dr. Mark Holterman helped the family arrange to have the procedure at his Peoria hospital, bringing in Macchiarini to lead the operation. Children’s Hospital waived the cost, likely hundreds of thousands of dollars, Holterman said.

Part of OSF Saint Francis Medical Center, the Roman Catholic hospital considers the operation part of their mission to provide charity care, but also views it as a way to champion a type of stem-cell therapy that doesn’t involve human embryos, the surgeons said. The Catholic church opposes using stem cells derived from human embryos in research or treatment.

Macchiarini has been involved in 14 previous windpipe operations using patients’ own stem cells — five using man-made scaffolds like Hannah’s but in adults; and nine using scaffolds made from cadaver windpipes, including one in a 10-year-old British boy.

He said only one patient died, a 30-year-old man from Abingdon, Md., who had the operation in November 2011 to treat late-stage cancer of the windpipe. He died about four months later of uncertain causes, Macchiarini said.

Similar methods have been used to grow bladders, urethras and last year a girl in Sweden got a lab-made vein using her own stem cells and a cadaver vein.

Scientists hope to eventually use the method to create solid organs, including kidneys and livers, said Dr. Anthony Atala, director of Wake Forest University’s Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

FILE – In this Tuesday April 23, 2013 file photo, Everett Dutschke stands in the street near his home in Tupelo, Miss., and waits for the FBI to arrive and search his home. Dutschke, charged with making and possessing ricin as part of the investigation into poison-laced letters sent to President Barack Obama and others was expected to appear in court Monday April 29, 2013. (AP Photo/Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, Thomas Wells, File)

OXFORD, Miss. — A Mississippi man’s house is uninhabitable after investigators searched it but failed to find evidence of the deadly poison ricin, a lawyer said Monday, arguing that the government should repair the home.

Kevin Curtis was charged in the mailing of poisoned letters to President Barack Obama, U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker and a Mississippi judge, but the charges were later dropped. The investigation shifted last week to another man who had a falling out with Curtis, and that suspect appeared in court Monday on a charge of making ricin.

Curtis’ lawyer, Christi McCoy, has sent a letter to U.S. Attorney Felicia Adams demanding that Curtis be provided temporary housing and the government repair his Corinth, Miss., home and possessions. She also wants the government to pay his legal bills.

“To be specific, Mr. Curtis’ home is uninhabitable. I have seen a lot of post search residences but this one is quite disturbing. The agents removed art from the walls, broke the frames and tore the artwork. Mr. Curtis offered his keys but agents chose to break the lock. Mr. Curtis’ garbage was scheduled to be picked up Thursday, the day after he was snatched from his life. A week later, the garbage remains in his home, along with millions of insects it attracted,” the letter says.

Though attorneys for Curtis say their client was framed, McCoy believes whoever sent the letters had a primary goal of targeting the public officials. Curtis has said that he feuded with the man now charged in the case, James Everett Dutschke. “I think Kevin was just an afterthought or a scapegoat,” McCoy said. Some of the language in the letters was similar to posts on Curtis’ Facebook page and they were signed, “I am KC and I approve this message.” Curtis often used a similar online signoff.

Had damaging Curtis been the point of the scheme, McCoy said she believes that whoever set up her client could have done a better job of implicating him, such as planting evidence at his home.

McCoy said in an interview Monday that she still believes the FBI acted on the best information available at the time, but it’s time to make her client whole. The letter said Curtis’ life was “ruined.”

Curtis, a 45-year-old Elvis impersonator, was arrested on April 17. The charges were dropped six days later and Curtis was released from jail. A message left seeking comment about McCoy’s letter at the federal prosecutor’s office in Oxford wasn’t immediately returned.

After Curtis was released, the focus turned to Dutschke. In court Monday, a judge ordered that Dutschke be held without bond until a preliminary and detention hearing on Thursday. More details are likely to emerge at that hearing, when prosecutors have to show they have enough evidence to hold him. Dutschke made a brief appearance wearing an orange jumpsuit with his hands shackled. The 41-year-old suspect said little during his hearing other than answering affirmatively to the judge’s questions about whether he understood the charges against him.

Dutschke (pronounced DUHS’-kee) has denied involvement in the mailing of the letters, saying he’s a patriot with no grudges against anyone. He has previously run for political office and was known to frequent political rallies in northern Mississippi. An attorney from the public defender’s office appointed to represent Dutschke declined to comment after Monday’s hearing. Another attorney of Dutschke’s, Lori Nail Basham, said she will continue to represent him in other matters but not the federal case.

Katherine Russell, right, wife of Boston Marathon bomber suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, leaves the law office of DeLuca and Weizenbaum with Amato DeLuca, left, Monday, April 29, 2013, in Providence, R.I. (AP Photo/Stew Milne)

BOSTON — The defense team representing the Boston Marathon bombing suspect got a major boost Monday with the addition of Judy Clarke, a San Diego lawyer who has managed to get life sentences instead of the death penalty for several high-profile clients, including the Unabomber and the gunman in the rampage that injured former Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

Clarke’s appointment was approved Monday by U.S. Magistrate Judge Marianne Bowler.

Bowler denied, at least for now, a request from Miriam Conrad, the public defender of 19-year-old suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, to appoint a second death penalty lawyer — David Bruck, a professor at Washington and Lee University School of Law.

Tsarnaev has been charged with using a weapon of mass destruction during the April 15 marathon. Three people were killed and more than 260 injured when two bombs exploded near the finish line.

The suspect’s lawyers could renew their motion to appoint another death penalty expert if he is indicted, the judge said.

Clarke’s clients have included the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski; Susan Smith, who drowned her two children; Atlanta Olympics bomber Eric Rudolph; and most recently Tucson, Ariz., shooter Jared Loughner. All received life sentences instead of the death penalty.

Clarke has rarely spoken publicly about her work and did not return a call seeking comment Monday.

However, at a speech Friday at a legal conference in Los Angeles, she talked about how she had been “sucked into the black hole, the vortex” of death penalty cases 18 years ago when she represented Smith.

“I got a dose of understanding human behavior, and I learned what the death penalty does to us,” she said. “I don’t think it’s a secret that I oppose the death penalty.”

Bruck has directed Washington and Lee’s death penalty defense clinic, the Virginia Capital Case Clearinghouse, since 2004.

In other developments in the Boston case:

— FBI agents visited the Rhode Island home of the in-laws of the suspect’s brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, and carried away several bags. The brother was killed in a gun battle with police.

Katherine Russell, Tsarnaev’s widow, has been staying at the North Kingstown home and did not speak to reporters as she left her attorneys’ office in Providence later in the day.

Attorney Amato DeLuca says she’s doing everything she can to assist with the investigation.

— President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed terrorism coordination Monday in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings. Obama expressed his “appreciation” for Russia’s close cooperation after the attack.

The suspected bombers are Russian natives who immigrated to the Boston area.

Russian authorities told U.S. officials before the bombings they had concerns about the family, but only revealed details of wiretapped conversations since the attack.

AP Special Correspondent Linda Deutsch in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

“The true college,” writes the African-American author W.E.B. DuBois (in words etched in stone in the walkway at Brooks Residential College), “will ever have one goal – not to earn meat, but to know the end and aim of that life which meat nourishes.”

In “The Souls of Black Folk,” which contains the most eloquent defenses of liberal education ever written by an American, DuBois opposed the exclusion of African-Americans from the right to vote and from civic equality. But he objected equally to the exclusion of African-Americans from the pursuit of a truly liberal education, to their being limited to a merely instrumental education, and education in a trade.

In arguing that education, whatever instrumental ends it might serve, is intrinsically worth pursuing, DuBois stands in a long line of great thinkers, going back to Socrates and St. Augustine.

As we at Baylor ponder the question of the value of higher education, its intrinsic merit, we would do well to keep DuBois in mind.

In the nation’s most elite institutions, there is a growing sense that these very institutions have lost sight of their core mission. A professor of computer science and former dean at Harvard, Harry Lewis contends in “Excellence Without a Soul: How a Great University Forgot Education,” that the “ideal of liberal education lives on in name only.” University education, Lewis finds, offers students no sense of “larger purpose in life.”

Similar arguments are made by former Yale Law School dean Anthony Kronman in his book “Education’s End: Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up On the Meaning of Life.” Kronman argues that students need to study the most important accounts from the past and the present of what constitutes a worthy human life.

But liberal education is not just about the big questions. It is also about the pursuit of truth in a variety of disciplines, about the cultivation of certain kinds of habits, habits of hard work, humility and intellectual honesty.

Put more bluntly, liberal education provides students with what one contemporary author calls a “bullshit meter,” an ability to distinguish solid arguments from slick rhetoric, what is of enduring significance from a passing fad.

Most fundamentally, liberal education fosters a love of learning.

As Lewis notes, what is distinctive about college life is the possibility it offers students for a short but crucial period in the years between adolescence and adulthood to become “immersed in the life of the mind.”

Liberal education is about the spirit of wonder, a spirit that knows no bounds — it can be equally present in an English poetry class, a chemistry lab, a music tutorial or a philosophy seminar.

Considered a distinctive capacity of human persons by great thinkers from Socrates to J.R.R. Tolkien, wonder is a counter to two of the chief vices of our time: inordinate certitude, the confidence that we know everything there is to know, and skepticism, a surrender of the human spirit that despairs of the very quest for truth.

By cultivating the habit of wonder, liberal education provides one with the habit of ongoing inquiry. An educated person is characterized not so much by the possession of stock set of answers as by the capacity to ask the next relevant question in whatever matter is under discussion or investigation.

Lewis, Kronman and a host of others worry that such an ennobling vision of liberal education is now subordinate to a consumerist worldview; in contemporary America, that view is driven by physical comfort and entertainment.

It is not a coincidence that, at the same time as this worldview has come to prominence in America, universities have pumped enormous resources into offering students the latest and best in exercise, food and entertainment options.

In this atmosphere, universities can easily lose track of the one thing necessary for a university, the one thing that it alone can foster: the cultivation of the intellect in light of higher ideals.

With its commitments, spelled out in the new vision document Pro Futuris, to the pursuit of truth and the discovery of knowledge; to the breaking down of artificial barriers between student life and academic life through the development of residential colleges and living-learning centers; to the integration of Christian faith and the intellectual life; and to the fostering among students, faculty and staff an appreciation of our divine calling — Baylor University aspires to an ennobling vision of liberal education.

Socrates, the founder of liberal education, might as well have been challenging each of us when he spoke to his fellow citizens, saying:

“You are an Athenian, a citizen of the greatest city with the greatest reputation for both wisdom and power; are you not ashamed of your eagerness to possess as much wealth, reputation, and honors as possible, while you do not care nor give thought to wisdom or truth, or the best possible state of your soul?”

- Dr. Thomas Hibbs, distinguished professor of ethics and culture and dean of the Honors College

Photo Illustration by Travis Taylor| Lariat Photographer

One year before enrolling at Baylor for the 2010 fall semester, hospital corpsman Rachael “Doc” Harrelson was rendering aid to fellow shipmates in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Now Harrelson is more concerned about financial aid than rendering aid.

The Hewitt senior served eight years with the Navy and deployed to Iraq for Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, and Enduring Freedom in 2005, aboard the USS Harry S. Truman, an aircraft carrier stationed out of Norfolk, Va.

Now married with children, Harrelson said her transition to college was difficult. It was tough mentally and financially. Having to pay for college and support a family presented many challenges.

“I actually began taking college courses while I was serving in the Navy,” Harrelson said. “Once I was out, I began college full time, and I realized how different things were.”

Some veterans have a working spouse and school-aged children. Some have said they find it hard to contribute financially and difficult to find the time to fully tend to their household.

Marlin junior Justin Horvath is a student veteran who served 10 years active duty in the U.S. Army.

“Going to school is a challenge because of money and a rigid schedule, but it is better than the Army because I have more family time and we don’t have to move around,” Horvath said. He is married with three children.

Although Harrelson said she’s doing OK now with the help of financial aid, she said she had to struggle and find ways to help pay her tuition when her benefits ran out in April 2012.

The GI Bill provides up to 36 months of education benefits. Generally these benefits are payable for 15 years following release from active duty, or veterans can transfer their GI Bill benefits to dependents.

“The military extended my benefits to finish through May, but then I needed to find a way to pay off my last year here,” Harrelson said. Being a transfer student as well as changing majors added on more schooling for her than the GI Bill covered.

“Baylor was outstanding in helping me to get a few loans and scholarships together,” Harrelson said.

She shared advice for veterans who also need help to pay tuition.

Harrelson said she relies on the Rhonda S. Reynolds Departmental Scholarship for the Communication Sciences and Disorders Department, Baylor Institutional Loan, Transfer Baylor Scholarship, a need-based scholarship and the Texas Tuition Equalization Grant. She will graduate in May with a bachelor’s degree in communication sciences and disorders–speech language pathology and a reasonable amount of loan debt.

“I was accepted to graduate school this summer, and I am looking for ways to cover this as well,” Harrelson said. “Seeing as my husband is active duty, I will be using his GI Bill benefits for the next three semesters; however, the GI Bill only covers $17,500 a year, and my cost will surpass that.”

But she has one more secret weapon, which is found in her faith.

“We put our faith in God, and we know that no matter where we are stationed, it’s for the best,” Harrelson said

Waco senior and Navy veteran Ashley Groke said the burden of making ends meet during the breaks from school is financial strain.

“It’s important to be prepared for the winter and summer breaks if you aren’t attending school full time,” Groke said.

Veterans using the Post-9/11 GI Bill are not paid their monthly living allowance in-between sessions, and for partial months, the benefits are pro-rated.

“I just recently started working at CVS Pharmacy, and this money will primarily go toward saving for the months that we have breaks from school,” Groke said.

Groke said she realized she needed to work a steady job to keep her tuition and other costs covered.

“In fall 2011 my husband still had a year to fulfill on his contract, so we were separated for a year while I came to Baylor,” Groke said. “It was hard trying to find a place to live in Texas while living in California and difficult to split our furniture and bills to support two rents and two sets of bills.”

Life at the Grokes’ house is easier, thanks to the Chapter 33 Post 9/11 GI Bill and Yellow Ribbon, which helps cover college tuition, books and living expenses.

Together with the state of Texas, however, Baylor is part of the Yellow Ribbon program, a fund that helps students meet the higher cost of a college education without having to expend more of their Post 9/11 entitlements.

“This is truly a blessing,” Groke said. “Everything is 100 percent covered. In addition to tuition, we receive a housing allowance and a book stipend each semester.”

Current provisions of the Chapter 33 Post-9/11 GI Bill do not include benefits during school breaks, unless they are taking summer classes.

Dallas senior Sgt. Josiah Johns is currently in his first school year back after serving in the military. After serving he decided to forgo other positions in the military in order to complete his degree in international studies, which he began prior to his deployment.

Having gone to Baylor both before and after his service, Johns had an advantage because he knew what he was coming back to. However, there were still obstacles.

“College at a well-off university like Baylor is about as polar opposite as you can get from war. The transition is not easy,” Johns said.

Johns said he was fully aware of the programs and bills in place that would provide funding for his education. The problem was that he was unaware of any services or programs that Baylor provides to veterans in order to complete a smooth transition.

Baylor’s registrar’s office has benefits and programs set up, but veterans such as Johns have had troubles in their enrollment and transition.

Johns ran into difficulties trying to transfer credits and release holds that had been put on his registration.

“I gave them a year heads-up of my situation,” Johns said. “I was trying to make my return easy for Baylor and myself. But when I got back, it was a nightmare trying to get everything in order.”

The university registrar has a Veterans Affairs office, located in Robinson Tower, to provide information to military students and their families regarding financial opportunities and programs that are offered by the university, making the transition from active duty to university life much smoother.

As a private university, Baylor offers attending veterans a number of benefits from the GI Bill and other scholarships, although not all articles from the GI bill are applicable to the school.

One major aid program not offered by Baylor or other private institutions is the Texas Hazlewood Act, which provides 150 hours of tuition exemption to student veterans at state schools around Texas. Baylor does not offer this because it is a private institution. This program is only offered by state-funded schools.

Eighty of Baylor’s student veterans are on financial aid and most Texas schools make use of G.I. Bill Chapter 33, the “Post 9/11” clause that provides tuition, housing allowances and other benefits to members who served after 9/11. Baylor does not require student veterans to register as such so the total number of student veterans is unknown.

Other financial opportunities that are offered to Baylor veterans include the Montgomery G.I. Bill Chapter 30, the John Fry Scholarship that is available to the college-attending dependents of veterans, and a potential upcoming military work-study program.

The Veterans Affairs work-study program was created by Baylor’s Veterans Affairs specifically for beneficiaries of the G.I. Bill to alleviate rising tuition costs that might strain the financial aid of post-9/11 and other entitlement programs.

The work-study program will focus on positions within the Texas Veterans Affairs, including posts in veterans care facilities, national cemeteries and universities interacting with other veterans and service members.

Another issue for veterans who have served less time is the recent cut of the Federal Tuition Assistance (FTA) program that aids those who have served less than 3 years.

“There is a movement in America to support the veterans but the FTA ends up being one of the first things cut,” Johns said.

Together with Harrelson, Horvath and Groke, veterans like Johns are adjusting as best they can to the college life here at Baylor.

Relying on financial aid can be a risk, but with the support from Baylor and government programs, veterans here may be able to breathe a little bit easier.

Choosing which college is the best fit is tough. Tough because impacts your future. With the cost of higher education said to be on the rise, you’re not just choosing a brand name for your diploma – you’re choosing how much debt you may carry after graduation.
The choice isn’t easy.

Although many factors come into play when selecting a college, including location and size, local tutor Rachael Fineske, a 2000 alumna, said she chose to attend Baylor because of her religious background her family’s influence.

“My parents weren’t as concerned about price as much as my happiness,” Fineske said. “Their main concern was my walk with the Lord and they let me make my decision based on that.”

For some, making a college decision can be stressful.

“It’s like choosing a shampoo at the store,” Fineske said. “There’s no doubt that each option will clean your hair, but what else will it do, and how will it affect each person’s hair individually? The choice can be overwhelming. Does the large Costco-size bottle seem most practical, or the smaller more specialized boutique option? Making an informed decision is difficult with so many options. Choosing a college is similar.”

But while a bottle of shampoo can cost less than $5, the price of a university education, which can total in thousands, has the potential to impact the lives of students well into their future.

For example, the base cost of undergraduate tuition at Baylor, $30,586 for the 2012-2013 school year, has risen $1,866 from the previous year, according to the student financial services website.

Terrell Brown, a high school senior in Fresno, said he couldn’t attend his first choice college —Baylor —due to the cost of its tuition.

“I had my heart set on coming to Baylor ever since I can remember, but because tuition is so high and they didn’t offer me the best scholarship, I signed for Houston Baptist University to play football instead,” Brown said.

Though disappointed at first, Brown appreciates the ability to graduate without debt. On a full-ride to HBU for football, Brown says he gets to do what he loves and still attend a school with strong Baptist values.

Others come, but don’t stay.

Sabrina Gonzales, a junior at McLennan Community College from San Antonio, attended Baylor for her freshman and sophomore years. Gonzalez cited cost as one of the reasons she switched schools.

MCC offers an accelerated nursing program that is shorter in duration and less expensive than Baylor’s. Baylor’s nursing program takes four years while MCC’s takes only two.

“It’s nice being able to avoid the downward debt spiral by attending MCC, and I’m sure my family appreciates it too,” Gonzales said.

Gonzales will graduate debt-free. Her mother has supported her financially since the beginning of her college career.

“I just feel so lucky to have such a supportive family behind me,” Gonzales said. “All I have to do is focus on my studies. Not having to work or worry about how I’m going to pay for school is such a blessing.”

High tuition can force some to look at sources for financial aid that may lead to debt after college. The choice Fineske made to attend Baylor resulted in debt. As a working mother of three, Fineske continues to pay off student loans she and her husband Chad, a 1997 alumnus, have accumulated from attending Baylor.

Although their parents helped with a fraction of their tuitions, getting involved in club lacrosse for Rachael and Kappa Omega Tau for Chad resulted in additional fees.

“Debt has been something we’ve managed to slowly chip away at each year,” Fineske said. “Although it’s not always easy, we wouldn’t change the education and experiences we got out of Baylor for anything.”

However, some manage to pay by using scholarships. Scholarship money can offset debt that students will graduate with, making college more affordable.

Such is the case for students like Sugar Land junior Lexi Luckenbill.

She is on an academic full-ride scholarship, contingent on maintaining a grade point average of a 3.5 or higher.

As an accounting major and business fellow, Luckenbill said she expects Baylor’s name to enhance her career later.

“I work hard because I know how valuable my degree will be from such a prestigious school like Baylor,” Luckenbill said. “I consider myself extremely lucky to be here.”

Luckenbill isn’t alone. 90 percent of undergraduate students at Baylor receive some sort of financial assistance, according to the student financial services website.

Others choose cheaper schools.

Patrick Buckley, a junior from Needville, attends Sam Houston State University.

The cost of undergraduate base tuition for the 2012-2013 school year at Sam Houston State University is $6,608, which is $23,978 less than Baylor tuition.

Buckley, who has lived in Texas his entire life, chose an in-state school that he believed fit his needs, including tuition cost and size.

“Just because I don’t go to some fancy school doesn’t mean I’m not getting a great education and experience,” Buckley said. “I can’t imagine going anywhere else but here.”

Buckley said that aside from just tuition cost, he chose his school based on the culture of the student body.

He said the name of the school wasn’t as important as the people he’d be surrounding himself with.

The cost of education across the board is said to be increasing. Since 1986 education costs have increased by over 104 percent. Growing at an average rate of 4.8 percent a year, tuition costs are at an all-time high according to money.cnn.com.

The value of a college degree offsets the price of tuition when entering the workplace. Knowledge and resources gained from a college experience through classes and networking are a valuable asset when entering the job market.

“Students who do not apply to a program they believe fits their educational needs and goals because of a price tag may be missing out on scholarship opportunities,” said Bradley Toben, dean and M.C. & Mattie Caston Professor of Law at Baylor University School of Law.

Toben says he sees the importance of attending the school you want to graduate from and believes that is a reason increasing tuition does not lower the amount of incoming students at a more pricey university such as Baylor.

Texas has a vast selection of different college options. Private and public universities litter the Lone Star State with opportunities for each kind of student.

Whether it’s Baylor University, Sam Houston State University or McLennan Community College, the higher education opportunities are endless.

“In the end I’m glad I chose Baylor,” Fineske said. “I met my husband, got a great degree, and was encouraged in my walk with the Lord. Looking back, debt or no debt, I wouldn’t have changed my college choice. I bleed green and gold.”

What do Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and Michael Dell have in common?

They’re all incredibly successful, and all three dropped out of college.

In an era where the cost of higher education at a four-year university is higher than ever, some are questioning whether a college degree really gets you anywhere at all — especially if it means graduating with significant debt.

These examples prove it is possible to succeed without a college degree. However, dropouts do range from multibillionaires like these to the unemployed.

Reasons for dropping out include financial obligations, the inability to handle the academic workload and the competing demands of social life, according to the 2011 “Pathways to Prosperity” study by the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Some who make an early exit find success in areas such as technology – like Zuckerberg or Gates. Others constantly hunt for a job – any job.

Whitney, an Austin resident, whose name has been changed to protect her privacy, has struggled to find employment since leaving Howard Payne University in 2011. She had not yet determined her major when she left college due to difficulty with the academic workload.

“I thought college would lead me to something I would have liked to do as a career, and it didn’t,” Whitney said. “I think a degree helps a lot, but plenty of people without degrees make a great living and have great lives and jobs.”

Whitney has held six different jobs since 2011 and said she struggles to find jobs that pay more than minimum wage.

“Sometimes it’s really hard, and I just want to give up,” Whitney said.

She is now employed at Jimmy Johns and said she hopes to stay there for a longer term than her previous jobs. Whitney said she isn’t sure where life will take her in the future without a degree to fall back on.

“Make sure you have a backup plan and are able to find a job to support yourself while you are deciding what to do with your life,” Whitney said.

Rising tuition rates play a role. According to data analysis done by Education Sector, of the college students surveyed who took out loans, about 30 percent dropped out of school. The yearly increasing cost of tuition is making it harder for people to afford a four-year college degree.

Other people have a hard time justifying the cost of college and waiting four years until they start a career, versus skipping college to start earning money immediately in a career field. But money is not the only consideration for dropping out. A degree alone no longer guarantees a job.

A 2011 Pew Research Center report, “Is College Worth it?” was conducted to collect the opinions of the general public on the cost, value and monetary payoff of attending college. They concluded that “for many young adults, the ultimate bottom line is whether a degree or credential they earn will help them secure a job.”

There are other alternatives to gaining skills needed in the workforce: receiving technical training or gaining skills from trade schools are two options.

According to the 2011 report, non-college graduates are more focused on preparing for a career, while those who graduate from college are more focused on gaining knowledge.

For example, Florida resident Gary Power is currently working to develop a program that can help people for whom college may not be an option, gain skills in information technology (IT) in order to increase their chances of getting a job.

“I think that I can teach non-degree people to learn the skills that I received with a degree,” Power said.

Power received a bachelor’s of Science and Administration degree at Stonehill College in 1987 and a master’s degree in business from the University of Texas at San Antonio in 1992. Power said he thinks his own degree has hardly any value.

“I had to learn everything on the job,” Power said. In addition to on-the-job training, Power also gained useful skills while attending technical school after serving in the military.

“That’s where I got all the information I needed for IT,” Power said.

Power wants to provide a real-world experience for young people interested in IT by training them on the same systems they will actually use at their place of employment.

Despite his feelings about the value of earning a degree, Power still believes going to college is important. He said by attending college, one would learn to become disciplined and think critically.

Others have found their true passion after dropping out of four-year colleges and plan to pursue their dreams by attending alternate schools.

Another Austin resident, who didn’t want his name mentioned due to the sensitivity of this issue, left the University of Missouri at Kansas City in 2009 in order to join the Marine Corps. He said he didn’t enjoy his major at UMKC and thought joining the Marine Corps would be a “great lifestyle change” for him.

Although satisfied with his decision to leave college before completing his degree, he believes that “earning a degree is a key point to being successful in the working world and living a well- lived life.” He is currently pursuing his passion for cooking at the Le Cordon Bleu culinary trade school.

Arkansas resident Hilary Cranford, who left the University of Arkansas in 2011, took time off to teach at a preschool and found her passion for professional photography.

“I want to go back for art with a concentration in photography because I love it, and I am passionate about it,” Cranford said.

When asked if she had any advice for students thinking about leaving school, Cranford offered these words: “Don’t drop out just because you don’t like working hard and going to class. Find what you are passionate about and pursue that,” Cranford said. “Have a plan, and stick to it. But do what you love.”

Students attend college to learn, however in almost half of the country’s colleges, they are kept in the dark instead.

Since most colleges elect to keep student debt information private, there is no set national requirement. However, the national average student-load debt is increasing. In many cases, this leaves third-party watchdogs such as The Institute for College Access and Success (TICAS) to fill the gap. Colleges provide a common data set that these organizations use to gather their statistics.

The Project on Student Debt report is an evaluation by TICAS of that common data set. Using data compiled by Peterson’s Undergraduate Financial Aid and Undergraduate Databases, the Project on Student Debt provides a comprehensive breakdown of reported national and state student debt information.

According to Peterson’s, in 2011, only 55 percent of four-year accredited, nonprofit colleges, both public and private, in the U.S. reported data about their graduates’ debt. Of those that submitted data, 64 of these colleges had 90 percent of graduates leaving with debt.

The cost of Texas universities varies greatly. With the yearly undergraduate cost of attendance (COA) passing $51,214 in 2012 – 2013, Baylor ranks among the most expensive schools in Texas. Other expensive schools include Southern Methodist University and Rice University that have a COA of $61,567 and $52,242, respectively. Texas Christian University falls under Baylor with a COA of $46,350. All of these figures are much larger than public universities such as Sam Houston State University, $20,876, and University of Texas-Austin $26,340. All independently reported 2012 – 2013 COA values were higher than the 2010-2011 COA according to the Project on Student Debt information.

And as national student debt has increased, some students who didn’t plan on borrowing money had to make quick decisions.

Baylor alumnae Hannah Hall said, “I wasn’t in need of student loans until my senior year, and even with only that year to pay off, I’m looking at losing a lot of my savings for the next five to 10 years.”

Many students are turning to multiple loans to make ends meet. The Wall Street Journal reported “the number of consumers with two or more open student loans on their credit report grew from 12 million in 2005 to 26 million in 2012.” This number is more than double the number of students with multiple college loans in 2005.

“I was put in a situation where multiple loans were probably needed, but looking at the varying interest rates and time to pay off the debt, it seemed easier for me to cover what I could out of pocket and just take on one massive loan,” Hall said.

Hall’s situation is hardly unique. In Texas alone, college graduates in 2011 owed $22,140 on average, according to the Project on Student Debt. This number was calculated using voluntary reporting and only represents 46 out of the 90 Texas colleges.

Baylor University is one of the other 44 colleges in Texas who do not voluntarily report graduates’ debt.

One common misconception is that Baylor’s lack of reporting is due to being a private college. While many public colleges, such as Texas A&M University, report debt information, many private universities comparable to Baylor also submit debt information.

In recent years, the administrations for Texas Christian University, Southern Methodist University and University of Mary Hardin-Baylor all reported student debt information.

Baylor financial services was unavailable for an interview, but director of media communications Lori Fogleman was able to supply some statistics, saying, “90% of the undergraduate students receive some form of financial assistance,” Fogleman said. Fogleman also said that 7,050 students at Baylor receive need-based financial aid.

A lack of reported debt information has led some Baylor alumni to turn online for comparative information. Some Baylor alumni who subscribe to BaylorFans.com have posted their debt information online, in an effort to compare with other graduates.

Many of the students who posted their debt information online were unaware of the massive effect loan debt would have on their life. And most students have already chosen a path when the final bill comes, whether or not they understood the cost of that path before they start college.

Baylor Law School alumnae Courtney Dickey said, “I knew how much school was going to cost when I first applied and knew I needed to take out loans to pay for the next three years. I guess what surprised me was just how long it was going to take to pay it all back and how much of it was interest.” Though she was not willing to talk about her annual salary, Dickey did say 10 percent of her paycheck is spent on student loan repayment. “It’s just funny to think of how I was excited to get such a high paying job once I graduated, that I never stopped to think that my salary was going to pay my loan that I took out just to get the education for the high paying job.”

The reality for Baylor students may set in during the mandatory exit interview for students who borrow from the university. While these mandatory meetings may instruct exiting students on their obligations, the information comes after any decisions are made.

This information may be a factor in the recent growth of student loan deferment. A national analysis by TransUnion found more than half of student loan accounts – 65.5 million of 128.8 million – are in deferment, as reported by the Huffington Post. The government run student aid website says “A deferment is a period during which repayment of the principal and interest of your loan is temporarily delayed.”

Though this may seem like a reasonable choice to make straight out of college, the requirements for deferment are steep and it doesn’t necessarily mean enough money can be saved in order to cover the debt.

“I planned on deferring when I graduated, but once I realized I barely met the qualifications and that after a year I was going to have to pay them anyway, I might as well just get it over with now instead of keep on pushing it off till I can’t pay them off,” Hall said.