LOST
GENERATION
COURTESY OF BRETTE JACKSON
cated Spaniards this year.
Javier Rincón, 27, has spent
the last two years in Berlin,
working as an analytics and
optimization manager. He left
Spain because “the conditions
were not acceptable,” he said. He
has no thought of returning.
“Every time I go back, I’m
more surprised by the sad state
of my country,” he says. “I can
see a clear decline in culture,
politics, economy.”
MIND-BOGGLING DEBT
Brette Jackson never imagined
it this way. Three years out from
her college graduation, she’s
working part-time at a Portland
supermarket, keeping herself fed
with the help of food stamps.
HUFFINGTON
10.20.13
Back when she enrolled at the
Art Institute of Seattle five years
ago — which is to say, back when
she and her parents signed off on
her $50,000 in loans — this was
not among the outcomes described
by the admissions counselors.
“They gave out a lot of statistics,”
Jackson recalls. “‘This many of our
students get jobs in their fields, and
they’re making X amount of money
every year.’ Those numbers are not
necessarily accurate.”
Since she got her associate’s degree from the for-profit school in
the spring of 2010, Jackson has
rarely known full-time work that
lasted more than a few months. The
jobs she’s managed to secure have
been well below her expectations
— the supermarket job in Portland,
a short-term holiday retail position at a Macy’s department store
in Seattle and a stint working as a
(From L to R)
Laura RupeJackson and
her daughters
Brette
Jackson and
Julianna
Jackson, with
Laura’s brother
(far right) and
his children.