College debt load burdens more families
Lewis DiuguidMore Americans are becoming 21st century indentured servants because of the college debt they are incurring.
A study released Wednesday shows that 22.4 million households, or 19 percent, had a college debt load. According to a Pew Research Center analysis, that’s up from 15 percent in 2007 and double what it was in 1989.
It’s partly driven by higher tuition costs, an increase in college enrollment and the economic downturn, which wiped out a lot of the home equity and savings that many families had banked on to send their kids to college.
In all households, the average outstanding college debt increased from $23,349 in 2007 to $26,682 in 2010.
But without a college education, kids and their parents know their chance of achieving a middle-class lifestyle and the American dream are zilch. So they go into debt like indentured servants when this country was being formed hoping for a better life when they are “free.”
George Hunsucker
Northland
7 months, 3 weeks agoLer’s see… is this more “change we can believe in”?????
Phil Cardarella
7 months, 3 weeks agoActually, Obama has dramatically improved the student loan system. He took out the banks as overpaid middlemen (getting money from the Fed at 0% and renting it out at 6-8%, compound interest, with federal guarantees), and got the interest rates cut.
This is a crisis generated by choice, not chance.
Back when we as a nation actually wanted to educate folks, student loans were at 3%. (Bank CDs paid 6%.) Interest bagan to run on graduation. And, universities were not-for-profit.
Then Congress got bought on this, too. It became one more way for the rich to make money off other peoples money. For-profit “universities” soak up money without providing actual educations. Their CEOs get paid as much as some small colleges faculties combined.
Banks get the money practically free, interest starts building up and compounding on Day One and the debts cannot be discharged in bankruptcy — so grads are forced to take jobs that will allow them to make their payments — and screw the public good. Who needs competent teachers in poorer districts and doctors in rural areas, anyhow? Gotta pay the loans.
Oh, that old system? It was started by that Commie Dwight Eisenhower. He considered it part of the national defense to have an educated populace. Of course, he thought millionaires and billionaires should pay taxes, too. And that businesses should be rewarded for making things in America.
How quaint!
George Hunsucker
Northland
7 months, 3 weeks agoI am “sure” you have a link proving this statement phil;
“Their CEOs get paid as much as some small colleges faculties combined.”.
I wonder when the star will start deleting your posts for not being truthful?
George Hunsucker
Northland
7 months, 3 weeks agoNote too phil, you said PAID, as in salary…
William R. Nelson
7 months, 3 weeks agoThe flaw your rumination, Mr. Diuguid, is that, even with a college degree, roughly 50% of recent graduates are still unemployed or under-employed in their chosen field.
The Atlantic has a good article entitled ‘How Liberal Arts Colleges Are Failing America.’
And the middle class is populated by many trade school graduates, such as plumbers, HAVC techs, truck mechanics, machinists and millwrights who achieved their training at a fraction of the cost of a 4 year college.
The tangible results of these trades is often 60, 80, or 100K per year in income.
Some people even gasp work their way through school (raising my hand). No massive debt required.
But you know the best thing, Mr. Diuguid, about choosing to go to college and choosing to go into massive debt for an education?
It’s voluntary.