Jamie Coleman used to draw his lines in ink; now he uses clippers. He used to draw on paper; now he has to contend with less cooperative canvases—the heads of squirming Harlem kids.
A former student at the Fashion Institute of Technology, Coleman, 32, put his plan to pursue an associate’s degree in graphic design on hold because the mounting costs of child support and monthly bills left him unable to pay for schoolbooks: “I had to choose between paying my loan, paying my rent, and paying for my son’s school uniform.”
He said that he couldn’t stretch his student loan far enough. Halfway through the two-year program, Coleman dropped out and into Harlem’s Own Barbershop, a single-room storefront at Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and 117th Street.
“I want to go back to school,” Coleman said after a particularly fidgety boy left his chair. The realities of paying for higher education in a dire economic climate will make his goal a struggle.
The stout, soft-spoken, lifelong resident of Harlem still pays $200 a month towards his original Citibank loan for FIT. His plan to save enough money cutting hair to go back to school without taking on more debt has been tested by declining business: “The money I was making here before the recession was not bad, but the way things are going now it’s horrible.”
During a bad week for Coleman at the barbershop, he might only take in $200. Another loan, he admits, might be the only way back to FIT.
If Coleman decides to continue his education, he will face a hazardous borrowing climate. Even as graduating students are carrying more debt than ever before, private lenders are increasingly reticent to lend to low-income students who need money beyond federal loans.
An October 2008 study by the Project on Student Debt found that 63% of graduates from New York universities in 2007 carry student debt at an average of $21,524 per student. These are higher than the national figures, where 59% of graduates carry debt, at an average of $20,098 per student, a six percent dollar increase from 2006.
Half of FIT’s 2007 graduates left school carrying debt, at an average of $19,510, according to Economicdiversity.org, a project of The Institute for College Access and Success.
