Student Loan Debt Crisis $ Threatens A Generation's American Dream
Student loan crisis threatens a generation's American dream. The Guardian, Oct. 4, 2018. Forget the picket fence. Rising tuitions and official policy fueled a trillion-dollar debt crisis. Could congressional action help? EXCERPTS:
With $60,000 in student debt, Cameron Vigil does not expect to marry or start a family anytime soon, or even to afford more basic living expenses.
“It’s definitely been holding me off on buying a car or getting a house,” said Vigil, 21, a Denver resident working on her master’s degree at Regis University. She expects her debt to balloon to $100,000 by the time she finishes her doctorate. “I kind of know I have to hold off on that.”
With a staggering $1.5tn in outstanding student loans, the United States faces a crisis that has rippled throughout the economy – and is getting worse. Nearly two-thirds of 2017 college graduates need to pay back student loans, according to the California-based Institute for College Access and Success, and about 9 million have defaulted.
Borrowers who leave college without graduating also leave saddled with debt and a lower ability to get the kind of job they need to swiftly repay it. And Republicans’ attempts to roll back protections for borrowers introduced under the Obama administration make the predicament even more dire.
The federal government’s student loan watchdog, Seth Frotman, left his post last month after abruptly announcing his resignation in late August. In a scathing letter, he accused his boss, appointed by Donald Trump, of using the agency “to serve the wishes of the most powerful financial companies in America”. As the student loan ombudsman, Frotman was responsible for reviewing borrower complaints about malpractice and aggression by lenders and debt collectors.
“People want to go to college because they want a leg up and federal grants and loans are supposed to help them get there,” said Debbie Cochrane, a vice-president at the Institute for College Access and Success. “We should all be concerned if students are left worse off after attending college.”
American student loan debt has swelled by $400bn in the past five years, according to the Federal Reserve, prompted partly by a precipitous rise of college tuitions following the 2008 financial crisis.
The average 2017 graduate who borrowed to afford college owed nearly $30,000 upon leaving college, up from less than $13,000 in 1996. -More..
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/oct/04/student-loan-crisis-threatens-a-generations-american-dream
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I went back to school later in life and had student debt at the same time as all of my kids... I have opted to put off paying my student loans and instead have helped my kids and now all but one have their loans paid off... I am taking on extra work to help the last get her loans paid... I will probably die with student loans and hope they don't come after my Social Security before that 
and work given the current system that is draining well- intentioned people and families in the US. It shouldn't be this expensive and difficult to obtain a decent education and a job, and it never was prior to Reagan, and the predators and greedheads who've run amuck over the last 35 years.
Not permitting any discharge of student debt ever, and attaching Americans' social security funds is horrendous.
This is not the way any advanced country that values it's citizens, esp. young people- the future, sets up a society. In Canada, Europe, and previously the US, higher education was affordable, not life wrecking!
In three generations, not one person in my family took out financial loans, borrowed money or carried any debt for college, even those who undertook post graduate studies. College tuition and housing were affordable, and students could work a part time job or summers for extra money.
The state run, public educational institutions that my relatives and many Americans attended, received a large amount of funding from tax revenue, and when Reagan enacted a huge tax cut for the wealthy in the 80s, there went the money.
A 'loan industry' for education didn't exist before the 1980s and 1990s, just like credit cards which were limited and mainly issued to company employees for travel, and well off individuals-- American Express, Diners Club, Gasoline Co. cards, etc.
But by the late 1970s financial institutions were sending credit cards to college students, like me. Junior year I got a mastercard in the mail w/o even applying. This country needs major reforms especially expunging the 'financialization' for profit motive that's ruining education in the US and the same for 'for profit' corporate health insurance.
