Mark Huelsman, a senior policy analyst at Demos, the left-leaning public policy organization, said he understands why debt-burdened students might take the risk of losing money in cryptocurrency markets. “The risk inherent in higher education now is higher than it ever has been," he said.
While the payoff for a good education remains, the costs are increasingly being borne by families. Debt, he said, is now basically required in order to earn a college degree.
Huelsman said the Bitcoin phenomenon reminded him of when he was in college in the early 2000s and knew of classmates who played online poker "not even to necessarily pay off their loans, but more to make ends meet while they’re in school," he said.
