A new analysis of state spending on higher education finds that states with a diverse economy, low unemployment, and a history of support for higher education are likely to maintain public spending on colleges. Conversely, states that do not have those characteristics have a hard time overcoming fiscal challenges to create a robust system of higher education.
The question of student loans is taking on an increasing urgency everywhere but Washington.
Rates on federally subsidized loans doubled to almost 7% on July 1,thanks to Congressional bickering and dithering. The latest attempt to roll back the rates failed to get out of the Senate earlier this week, when sponsoring Democrats failed to break a Republican filibuster against the bill.
It's still a given that a college education means bigger paychecks over a person's lifetime. But as people take on ever greater amounts of student debt to fund school, the wealth they accumulate over their lifetimes is drastically less than people who didn't have to borrow.
A student who takes out $53,000 in debt, the average amount for those attending a four-year public university, will experience a a lifetime loss of wealth totaling $208,000, according to a new report from the think tank Demos. It dives into the long-term costs of rising student debt and finds that for those who carry the $1 trillion in total student debt, their lifetime wealth loss will equal $4 trillion.
Following last week’s report showing that Ohio students who graduate with student loans hold an average debt of nearly $30,000, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) will outline a plan that would help Americans saddled with costly, private student loans refinance to more affordable options. During a news conference call today, Brown discussed how his bill would help individuals reduce their student loan debt by refinancing at no cost to taxpayers.
One of the sorriest American myths these days is that getting into enormous debt will secure a better financial future for today’s students.
Not only is debt a manacle for future generations, it’s not good for the country at large — a $4 trillion burden on future earnings and wealth.
When politicians make a stink about student loan rates, they’re smelling a rotten fish, but not the most obvious one. They should be berating colleges and our own broken higher education-funding system for not providing more grants — and less loans.
Once upon a time, we invested in our young people so that they could enter the world without debt. Now, we turn them into deadbeat debtors before they're old enough to legally buy a drink, left far behind their financial betters.
U.S. Representative Marlin Stutzman said, "Most people will agree that if you are an able-bodied adult without any kids you should find your way off food stamps."
That depends on whether those ways can be found. If Stutzman and other members of Congress believe it's that easy to find a job with a living wage, they're either ignorant of middle-class life or they are victims of free-market delusion.
About two-thirds of the 20 million people who attend college every year borrow money to do so. We’ve heard a lot about how growing educational debt loads — the average student borrower now graduates owing $26,600 — can be a detriment to someone just starting out in life, and to the health of the broader American economy. Student debt loads are crowding out other things that young people historically spend money on, forcing them to delay marriage, home ownership, auto and other big-ticket purchases, investments in start-up businesses, and retirement savings.
It's not so depressing if you think of it as 200,000 fewer purchases from The Dollar Tree over the course of forever. Currently, the average student debt balance for a household headed by two college graduates is $53,000, and according to a new study by research organization Demos, those households could end up $208,000 poorer over the course of a lifetime than a household with zero student debt.
While a college degree may give graduates a leg up in their careers, students who graduate with high student loan debt can find that ticket to be a costly one.
According to a study by the public policy research organization Demos, student loan debt may be more detrimental to your financial future than was previously thought.
Right now, eager 18-year-olds from across the country are tweeting with bravado photos of their newly postered dorm rooms and scanning with private fear their freshmen class schedules. They're embarking on a journey to capture their piece of the American Dream.
Like so many young Americans, Derek Wetherell is stuck.
At 23 years old, he has a job, but not a career, and little prospect for advancement. He has tens of thousands of dollars in student debt, but no college degree. He says he is more likely to move back in with his parents than to buy a home, and he doesn't know what he will do if his car—a 2001 Chrysler Sebring with well over 100,000 miles—breaks down.
So much has been accomplished by Occupy and other social justice movements in the past two years that it is incredible the corporate media and their pundits do not report on what is happening around them. Despite the lack of corporate media coverage, the movement is deepening, creating democratic institutions, stopping some of the worst policies from being pushed by the corporate duopoly and building a broad-based diverse movement. [...]
For some recent college graduates, this fall’s back-to-school season marks the beginning of the back-to-living-at-home stage of their lives. But with careful financial planning, that stage doesn’t have to last long, advisers say.
The student loan default rate is soaring, and it's flying highest among for-profit schools.
The U.S. Department of Education reports that across the nation, the share of borrowers who default within two years after college loan payments become due has risen nearly a full percentage point to 10 percent, while the rate for people who default within three years is up to 14.7 percent.
If a bad job market wasn’t damaging enough, the cost of paying off student loans does much more harm to the long-term prospects of young people than is commonly realized.
In the last four parts of this series, I have discussed the problems of our current student loan system, the potential for an income-based repayment system, and the difficulties of a graduate tax. This leaves us with another proposal: universal free undergraduate public higher education. [...]
