Dear Editor: What is more important: $400 a month to a multi-billion-dollar company, or our nation educating its best and brightest? A pound of flesh, or increasing diversity in academia?
I now face this choice: abandon my field of study to meet obligations to a student loan company, or ruin my financial future.
My graduate program in Latin American history at UW-Madison is arguably the nationâ??s best, and I have excelled in it, receiving numerous awards and fellowships while maintaining a perfect 4.0 GPA. I have a record of service locally and internationally. Were it not for my loan burden, I would be well positioned to become one of the nationâ??s few Latino Ph.D.s (1,157 according to the 2000 census).