This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
18 Sobering Facts About The Unprecedented Student Loan Debt Crisis In The US
Submitted by Michael Snyder of The End of The American Dream blog,
The student loan debt bubble in America is spiraling out of control, and it is financially crippling an entire generation of young Americans. At this point, the grand total of student loan debt in the United States has reached a staggering 1.2 trillion dollars, and an all-time record high 40 million Americans are currently paying off student loan debts. Just when our young people should be planning on buying homes and starting families, they find themselves financially paralyzed by oppressive levels of debt. What makes all of this even worse is that only some of our college graduates are able to get the “good jobs” that we promised them. So with limited job prospects and suffocating levels of debt, this generation of young Americans is increasingly putting off major life commitments such as buying a home and getting married. As a society, we really need to rethink how we are “educating” our young people, because what we are doing now is clearly not working. The following are 18 sobering facts about the unprecedented student loan debt crisis in the United States…
#1 According to the Wall Street Journal, the class of 2014 is “the most indebted ever“…
As college graduates in the Class of 2014 prepare to shift their tassels and accept their diplomas, they leave school with one discouraging distinction: They’re the most indebted class ever.
The average Class of 2014 graduate with student-loan debt has to pay back some $33,000, according to an analysis of government data by Mark Kantrowitz, publisher at Edvisors, a group of web sites about planning and paying for college. Even after adjusting for inflation that’s nearly double the amount borrowers had to pay back 20 years ago.
#2 In 1994, less than half of all college graduates left school with student loan debt. Today, it is over 70 percent.
#3 Approximately 15 percent of graduate and professional school students leave school with student loan debt balances in the six figures.
#4 At this point, student loan debt has hit a grand total of 1.2 trillion dollars in the United States. That number has grown by about 84 percent just since 2008.
#5 According to the Pew Research Center, nearly four out of every ten U.S. households that are led by someone under the age of 40 is paying off student loan debt right now.
#6 The median net worth of young households that have student loan debt is 20 percent lower than the median net worth of young households that do not have any student loan debt and that are led by someone with only a high school education.
#7 Among college educated people, the median net worth of young households that do not have student loan debt is seven times higher than the median net worth of young households that do have student loan debt.
#8 In 2008, approximately 29 million Americans were paying off student loan debts. Today, that number has ballooned to 40 million.
#9 Since 2005, student loan debt burdens have absolutely exploded while salaries for young college graduates have actually declined…
The problem developing is that earnings and debt aren’t moving in the same direction. From 2005 to 2012, average student loan debt has jumped 35%, adjusting for inflation, while the median salary has actually dropped by 2.2%.
#10 According to CNN, 260,000 Americans with a college or professional degree made at or below the federal minimum wage last year.
#11 Even after accounting for inflation, the cost of college tuition increased by 275 percent between 1970 and 2013.
#12 Debt for law school students has risen dramatically over the past decade or so…
J.D.s certainly don’t come cheap. It’s almost unheard of to attend law school without taking out significant loans. What’s more, the average debt load is mounting: in 2001-2002, JDs borrowed on average $46,500 at public law schools and $70,000 at private law schools; by 2011, those numbers rose to $75,700 and $125,000, respectively.
#13 Last year it was being reported that 34.9 percent of all student loan borrowers under the age of 30 are at least 90 days behind on their student loan payments.
#14 One survey found that 27 percent of those with student loan debt moved back in with their parents after college.
#15 Another survey found that 70 percent of all college graduates wish that they had spent more time preparing for the “real world” while they were still in school.
#16 Student loan debt is causing many young Americans to delay getting married. The following is from a recent NBC News article…
While there is no specific data on student debt-related delays to marriage, a recent study by the Pew Research Center shows that a record number of Americans have never married. The study found the median age at first marriage is now 27 for women and 29 for men. In 1960, the median age was 20 for women and 23 for men.
#17 Many Americans are not even using most of their student loan money to pay for college. Instead, many are using much of that money to pay bills or stock the fridge…
Take Ray Selent, a 30-year-old former retail clerk in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He was unemployed in 2012 when he enrolled as a part-time student at Broward County’s community college. That allowed him to borrow thousands of dollars to pay rent to his mother, cover his cellphone bill and catch the occasional movie.
…
Tommie Matherne, a 32-year-old married father of five in Billings, Mont., has been going to school since 2010, when he realized the $10 an hour he was making as a mall security guard wasn’t covering his family’s expenses. He uses roughly $2,000 in student loans each year to stock his fridge and catch up on bills. His wife is a stay-at-home mother who also gets loans to take online courses.
“We’ve been taking whatever we can for student loans every year, taking whatever we have left over and using it to stock up the freezer just so we have a couple extra months where we don’t have to worry about food,” says Mr. Matherne, who owes $51,600 in federal loans.
Some students end up going deeper into debt. Early last year, when Denna Merritt lost her long-term unemployment benefits, the 49-year-old Indianapolis woman enrolled part-time at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh’s online program, aiming for a degree in graphic design. She took out $15,000 in federal loans, $2,800 of which went to catch up on unpaid bills, including utilities, health-insurance premiums and cable.
“Obviously, it’s better not to use it that way if you can help it, because you’re just going to owe that much more later,” says Ms. Merritt, a former bookkeeper.
#18 Only 28 percent of Americans know that the U.S. government can garnish wages and withhold tax refunds if student loan debts are not repaid.
It should come as no surprise that the delinquency rate on student loan debt in this country is far higher than the delinquency rate on mortgages, auto loans and credit card debt.
This is a financial bubble that gets worse with each passing year, and if we continue on our current course it is going to end very, very badly.
- 22513 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -


indentured servitude is back. But now you have to work off your apprenticeship to the banks. How are you supposed to "buy" a house (I wish people would use the correct terminology and just say rent from the bank.) when your monthy payment to pay off student loans is what it is... especally when the first thing most people do when they graduate is go out and "buy" (rent from the bank) a car.
Wait, the govt loans/gives you cash for school but you can spend it on crack instead....
Winning!
University of Phoenix degree qualifies you for assistant crack whore... but, usually got to go to a historically black college to achieve full blown crack whore.
Bayou Classic halftime is hilarious display of devolution; I hope everyone involved is high on crack.
Listicle!
College: The ante-room to debtor's prison.
Average student loan = $33k. What is the price of the average house over there? And what is average weekly earnings? So, in theory, the price of the average house should fall by $33k. Or $66k if the average house is bought, on average, by a college graduate couple. Or the houses will be bought by high-school leavers and the grads will go homeless.
Anyone care to comment?
When the bubble popped in 2007, houses should have easily returned to 1998-levels by 2010.
With all of these cash-only Chinese investors pouring in, housing has gone total koo-koo for cocoa puffs level of absolute insanity.
For virtually everyone I know personally in the Xer generation, it's these outlandish mortgage rates holding them back.
$700 a month used to get you a nice brand new 3 to 4 bedroom house in suburbia in the late 1990s. Nowadays you're looking at $2,000 a month. $700 a month today, gets you a dilapidated house in the ghetto at the end of the airport runway.
These grads are going to land $11 an hour jobs, making $2 moar an hour than their high school graduate peers. A home mortgage is not even on their radar screens. Even at $20 an hour, good freakin' luck! With these loans, they might as well live at mom's house forever.
For the boomers, one income (the dad working) could support a household with a stay-at-home mom, and kids. For today's millenials, its both boyfriend/girlfriend working 2 part time jobs with oddball hours, no kids, and they are renting.
They accepted the loan willingly.
When they work, they can repay.
The same sympathizers, here would cut off Soc Sec TOMORROW, if they could.
Got consistent thinking ?
With that logic those that paid for social security willingly paid somebody for their social security. I am pretty sure I did not sign any contract with them so if they have a problem they should take it up with whoever they had the agreement with.
By the same token, an agreement was made by the govt upon forcing me to "save" with that tax.
Run with the wolves or run with the cockroaches.
Decisions, decisions ... shame I'm not a wolf.
Or a cockroach.
But then, I guess if I had the choice I'd be a bloody great big Flame Thrower.
Well, the problem is student loan debt has a default repayment period of 10 years. You have other complicating factors when comparing it to housing loans since you aren't paying for the taxes, PMI and other potential costs rolled into a mortgage, but yo udo have interest, which is typically higher on student loans so for the sake of simpliclity, we'll consider the two loans to have equivalent costs above just the principle.
So if you have 33K of student loan debt which is expected to be paid over 10 years, it would be the equivalent of lowering your home purchasing power by 100k on a 30-year loan. That's still a bit of a simplification, but as a rough rule-of-thumb, it works, aka, student loan debt x 3 = diminished max home purchase price.
yeah, ma wife go to dee U of P'hoe-nics, got dee assistance degree...but den dee EBT 101 class jus pick up dee income exponenshul-like...assistance like dat be mo' betta'...now she gon' gadeate to da wefare skoo...
I saw an ass-fire goin down Woodlands Park way....must have been you
If this .gov is the result of popular democracy; we better try something else; fast. Another 100% .gov caused problem; also 100% predictable/ foreseeable.
I know, I can't look into buying a house because of my debt. They don't realize that this non-discharbeable debt is like a millstone on the economy. Sooner or later they will have to write off this debt in order to increase GDP.
Do they want you to have $33k in the form of student loan debt or would they rather you have that $33k in real estate debt? That is the question. (And don't expect the extra 33k to buy you a better house - it will be the same one!)
Most of this this debt, just like Fedgov's unfunded liabilities, will never be repaid.
Let em eat cake. Most of them voted for this twice. A life of debt serfdom is like Hope and Chains.
OT: but this is for the Ebola deniers:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/ebola-outbreak/
We will know more about this outbreak by holloween, you wil just have to wait.
We will just have to wait a few weeks to see who lives and who dies. Then we will know what to do with any prep work that might need to be done with finance.
Interesting issue here. I am an Ebola denier by necessity. I've taken several flights in the last few weeks for business, and even if you try to wash your hands in the airplane bathroom you have to press the sink button while you do it. I did ask for the no-vomiting section, and fortunately that was available. At what point do they shut down commerce by scaring everyone? And is this the plan?
All joking aside Rand, I have had some bad experiences with long haul Air Line flights to Europe over the last decade. By nature I rarely get ill, but I have gotten ill shortly after a long haul flight on 5 of the last 8 times I flown the pond. There is ALWAYS one or two people coughing their lungs out up forward, in back or right funking next to me! Two of the exposures were to rather serious illnesses of viral nature. Actually doctors have no clue as to what most viral infections even are, a medical friend says the many mysterious and damaging illnesses are simply unknown viral infections floating around. And an Air Liner is heaven on earth for the virus! Closed up, recycled air over and over. One cough back aft will soon be circulated all over. Colds and flu like illness were what i mostly caught. But two times I got very ill.
Ebola in a plane. Infectious Ebola. A fucking nightmare!
I hear ISIS is thinking of using Ebloa infected suicide bombers to spread the disease. Or was it the CIA? I forget.
Dude. Viruses can run rampant on a cruise ship which is somewhat open with frssh ocean air.
An airliner is a bloody petri dish. I go out of my way to stay out of airports and hospitals.
Ebola is just to distract people from the collapsing global economy and an excuse to declare martial law.
I'd be much more worried about dysentery than ebola when the power goes out and our just in time inventory system shuts down wastewater treatment facilities...
Obviously you just commented without actually watching the documentary. Ebola could definitely hasten the collapsing economy.
nah, if the power goes down, don't be in the planet earth as nuclear reactors/fuel pools will all melt down. If the system totally collapses, there is no escape.
"18 Sobering Facts...."
Didn't work on me, but am I okay to drive now?
Listen.
"OMG I can't pay my loan I have eBola!"
Good thing we offshored all those good paying manufacturing jobs that only required a HS diploma.
The loan paid off if you die or after 30years of no payment.
The more money provided to feed the education sharks, the ever hungrier they become for more.
Tuition and other fees rise because of increasing demand. Cut the source of the demand (seemingly "easy money" assuring only bleak future debt slavery) and rich universities can no longer raise rates. Or they can go out of business if they cannot adjust to economic reality.
We have far more degrees issued than we have useful jobs on offer for the credentials obtained.
The answer isn't to grind out ever more numbers of indebted youngsters with mis-matched educations.
Only university bureaucracies and academic princelings benefit from that useless activity.
Strike the root.
Best to make loans to young naive people who have no idea what they are agreeing to.
It makes it even easier that they have already been brainwashed to believe that they must attend college at any cost.
An 18 year old has no concept of what it takes to pay off a loan, $1,000, $10,000, $100,000, there is no difference. It is just a number.
The banking sector is made up of criminal vampires, feeding off of our young yet no protest is raised aside from an occasional comment on sites like this.
Pre-approved credit card offers showing up in the mail for my high school aged son. I called the number and raised hell. The woman on the other end of the line was mystified that I would stand in the way of my child's opportunity to establish good credit.
My response. You have my name and my street address. I'd like the name and street address of the individual who made the decision to market credit cards to high school kids. No response.
Vampires.
20th Street and Constitution Avenue N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20551
Well, I'm not young...
However, I received a check in the mail today. $2500 and change, "just deposit it in your bank account" I flipped it over to see the terms, %30 annual interest! Just 30 payments of $122.00
Yeah right, of course it went straigtht into the trash,
Agreed, but colleges are just as bad, if not worse.
They are in cahootz with the banksters.
No such thing as a public college....they ALL are in it for the money.
They know an easy mark when they see one.
Re "An 18 year old has no concept of what it takes to pay off a loan, $1,000, $10,000, $100,000, there is no difference. It is just a number." :
Well they're supposed to. That's what it means to be an adult. That is why we learn maths at school. It's not like they weren't given the chance. I was in my mid-teens when I wrote a computer program that did all the required manipulations for calculating compound interest. Yes, geometric progressions and algebra were involved, and yes, for one particular form of the main equation I had to resort to successive approximations to calculate the answer.
But the average yob doesn't have to think that hard. All they have to do is some basic arithmetic to work out what they can afford and then go to the bank man and say, "I can afford $xxx in repayments. How much can I afford to borrow?" Errr, that won't work any more because banksters can now lend anything to anyone but 30 years ago those simple words would be enough for an intelligent discussion.
So what we have now is that THOSE WHO SHOULD BE GOING TO UNI, DON'T TO TO UNI, BECAUSE THEY HAVE DONE THE MATHS AND DON'T LIKE THE ANSWER IT IS GIVING THEM. Hell, it's bad enough signing a one-sided contract (I don't know about your country but in ours the govt can and does double fees whenever they feel like it and change the repayment terms whenever they feel like it). How many brain cells does it take to decide, "I don't want to sign a blank contract that the other guy can change at will"??? But I have to agree, there are still plenty of well-meaning parents out there that will say, "Don't worry about that darling, it will all turn out okay". So in order to go to uni, one must either be bad at maths or naive enough to believe it won't matter, and naive enough to sign a blank contract. They're our future!
And for those who aren't as fanatical about maths as me: Let me remind you that you didn't have to build your own compound interest calculating computer program - all you had to do was a little real-world arithmetic to figure out what you could afford and then talk to an honest banker, whoops -you were doomed on two accounts. You need to live by yourself for a couple of weeks so you can discover the real-world price of groceries (your parents cater for a whole family, not a single uni student) and you need to find an honest banker. If it is any consolation, it was my lack of social skills that caused me to drop out of uni ( tedious story but in short - lack of social skills because I couldn't handle a needy gf who wouldn't let me study ) - a lack of social skills caused by the intense amount of study I did as a youth (my own choice - I had dreams and goals ) which left no time for socializing but otherwise made me the exact guy who should have gone on to uni.
In my case, the fact that I couldn't handle a needy gf made me drop out. Uni fees and the absurdity of the one-sided contract ensured that I wasn't in a hurry to go back. Damn shame because the ten years before I went to uni was a continuum of proof that I was supposed to be there.
After I dropped out I thought, "No worries. Things didn't go as I expected but with hard work and enthusiasm I can still make things happen." I was wrong. For over 20 years so far. And now the enthusiasm is declining. You can only push as hard as you can on a brick wall for so long. Eventually you get tired. Your twenties are an important decade. If you have dreams and enthusiam, don't waste your enthusiasm. Conserve your enthusiasm and be quick to leave when it does not generate a return and try to find somewhere where it will generate a return.
The public school system offers ZERO financial education. Plus 18 year olds were brainwashed by their teachers and guidance counselors that if they don't go to college they'll be flipping burgers for $8 an hour for the rest of their lives. Never being told that they could be promoted to shift lead, than manager, then move on to something else with management experience.
Whenever I encounter late teens, I warn them about the student loan disaster. Some listen. Some argue with me, even though I'm in the working world warning them. They have all of the answers, when their "answers" are regurgitated talking points from the college recruitment reps.
If you're a parent, teach your kids financial education as early as possible because the schools just have your kids play ball games and watch Hollywood movies. Then they memorize some random factoids and try their best recalling these factoids off of the top of their heads on to "tests". 100% irrelevant to the real world, and a complete waste of time and taxpayer resources.
The kids have near-on 100% trust in their parents and teachers. Well, the kids that want to go to uni have near-on 100% trust anyway. That is why they have a hard time listening to you. Before I hit 18, I was smart enough NOT to trust newspapers or politicians but still had a lot of trust in my parents and teachers - even the ones I weren't too happy with.
All kids think they know everything. That's how they overcome fear and learn. No kid thinks, "Who you kidding? No way can I walk yet!!! I'll fall over!" No, they just assume they can do it and ignore all evidence to the contrary. Thank goodness. That childish state still exists in teenagers. "I'll get a good job because I studied hard." "My parents and teachers told me ..." It still exists in businessmen. "I don't know how to do it yet but I'm going to make it happen." "You need to take on more risk. You need to manage risk."
Don't let an 18 year old adult off the hook. I was fully aware at 18, acutely so, and chose to go to a cheap school as a result. I could have gone to a top 5 university and didn't because I would have been deeply in debt. In 1988. If you hold adults to a lower standard of awareness and intelligence, they will live down to it.
I was fully aware at 18 too, but I just got to establish why most 18 year olds will fall for the student loan gimmick. I think 14 year olds could be considered adults, if given the proper upbringing and environment. Unfortunately the progressive era caused arrested development. They got teenagers out of entry level employment/ apprenticeships and forced them into high schools and treat them like cattle and babies. That's why its such a mess.
Shit! Four red arrows (and no greens) for suggesting that, after ten or twelve years of schooling, 18 year olds should know enough maths to keep themselves out of the shit debt-wise. WTF??? Or was it something else I said?
Don't gimme a green I don't deserve and don't hold back on the reds but I'm still feeling a bit dumb here. Someone care to shine a light?
Maybe because "maths" is not the short form of mathematics?
Abbie - the localized, parochial version of English you learned in your corner of the world is not the same version of English that others learned. "Maths" and "Uni" are perfectly standard English in a small English speakinig country called England.
Is it just my imagination, or are a lot of today's college grads snotty punks who think the world owes them? Those naive self-righteous activists have been given the jobless world and debt slavery they voted for.
Apologies to those this does not apply!
You have it about right in my opinion. Not all are ungrateful. Some are just stupid.
In my case I was convinced that anyone who wanted to be as good as me, could be that good if only they would shut the fuck up, listen to the teacher and do the assigned homework. High school was a noisy place where teachers tolerated a lot of noisy smart-asses that should have been kicked out of class. My opinion was that the noisy smart-asses were a bunch of favoured, spoilt brats because no way would my parents tolerate that kind of behaviour from me and here they were, being tolerated by parents and teachers alike.
I understood that not everyone wanted what I wanted, and that it takes all types to build a society. I knew the world needed check-out chicks just as much as they needed rocket scientists ( okay, the check-out chicks are more important, should I swap "rocket scientists" for "doctors" or "engineers"? ), but I had a hard time acknowledging that check-out chicks don't need to learn calculus. (Yes, I know they don't even need to know much about numbers when the till does all the maths for them but calculus is so fucking awesome!!! How could anyone NOT want to know that???)
Errr, drifted off topic there for a bit. I think most of the "snooty uni student" thing is a mis-understanding. It's not so much that they don't want to talk to you but that they can't talk to you and graduate at the same time. One of my friends studied law and everyone started whinging that he only had time for his lawyer mates. Well, he needs to discuss his law problems with like minded people, doesn't he???? Of course he's only got time for his lawyer mates. He still liked to see everyone else, but when he needed to solve law problems, he needed his lawyer mates. How hard is that to understand.
But I never understood how the class clown was recognized as much more than a spoilt brat. Anyone else would be kicked up the ass but he got away with it. I guess the true crime is not knowing your audience.
"Is it just my imagination, or are a lot of today's college grads snotty punks who think the world owes them?"
These college grad punks have smart-ass X-er parents who thinks the world owes them, and snotty boomer grandparents who think the world owes them, so what do we expect? A freakin' miracle? The apple doesn't fall far from the tree you know?
Not far from the truth. Some their age understand that this is a broken attitude as well.
The scary thing is, you combine them running up debt with the sense of entitlement, and you have an entire cohort of young people primed to support a leader that promises them everything they want for no effort on their part -- perfect setup for a socialist/communist revolution. Not an accident.
maybe.
+1.2Trill
$33k student debt vs $500k average house price. Don't seem so significant now, does it?
(Pardon me, I'm mixing countries. What is the average house price over there? The $33k student debt figure sounds like it would be in the ball park over here though.)
You want real entitlement? Look at those fucking boomers. They will crash the system with their insistence on endless free shit far before the Youth of Today even get started. Greatest Generation, my ass.
Boomers call millennials "The Entitlement Generation", yet its the boomers who are the ones collecting the entitlements.
Boomers aren't the Greatest Generation -- their parents are, or were as the case may be.
Yep. The boomer's parents paid for the boomers and now everyone else is saying that it is too hard to look after the boomers.
(No, I'm not a boomer. I'm an X. Just smart enough to look at the swings as well as the round-abouts.)
You kids get off my lawn! Read some Socrates, old man. Every group of oldsters thinks the Youth of Today are "snotty punks." They have for 5000 years. That doesn't mean it's true. It means you're old.
:sniffle:
Trying to hold back that first tear for all the student loan suckers.
First step in taking back America from the treasonous pols, crats, funcs, and their bankster masters is to just quit paying.
An American, not US subject.
The most powerful weapon the American people have is Rejection.
The system of fraud and theft that has been built up upon the backs of the American people is dependent upon our backs. Withdraw our backs, and the whole scheme collapses. This is our greatest weapon.
Quit Paying--Put it into food, and precious metals, etc.They stole what ever "debt money" they loaned you in the first place (fractional reserve banking) and soon you won't be able to pay them anyways.
Quit Obeying--If they are in violation of the Constitution then they are not legitimate anyways.
Quit Playing--Quit being a tool for them to use.
The Four Rs
Rejection: Quit paying, quit obeying , quit playing
Revolution: It is inevitable, so prepare, as they are.
Retribution: The guilty must answer for their crimes against the American people and the Constitution.
Restoration: Restore the American people, country and Constitutional republic.
Unfortunately I am not one of the ones that will get to default on that debt since I have none of it. But it is good to know that it is there to partake of if needed to escape.
it might take centuries to get rid of all the cultural and institutional brakes on unrestricted usury but once all the brakes are removed then destruction comes very fast.
I think this is another part of the plan to reduce population. Suppress the young by saddling them with debt equals delayed or never marry or have kids.
Sick, are you dumb or what? The plan never gets past 'what can we change that will make our clients even more money than before'. Then they ask the clients if they can suggest anything to make it even better, like higher interest rates. It's another Koch themed program to take government utility functions, and convert them to private programs in the for-profit sector of the economy.
OH NOES IT IS THE KOCHS! EVERYTING WAS GREAT UNTIL THEM! IT IS TEH CORPORASHUNS!
Idiocracy is a documentary.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBvIweCIgwk
http://www.11points.com/Movies/11_Hidden_Secrets_in_Idiocracy
http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/16/the-app-store-is-proof-were-in-idiocracy/
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=idiocracy
cry me a river.
nobody forced those people to borrow so heavily against their own future.
Had they paid a little more attention to REALITY instead of their dream of a socialist utopia, their circumstances would likely be much different.
They're STILL ignoring reality as they refuse to see that their government is doing exactly the same thing.
Whether you are a person of faith or not, . . . . you reap what you sow.
No, but many are lied to about it.
My daughter was approached by a local trade school that offered her free tuition. Yeah, read the fine print, it's a student loan. You have predators out there aiming at 18yo kids that were kicked out of mom & formerly dad's house in foreclosure, so don't be shocked when they get loans they don't even realize are loans.
I had to ge tloans to pay for school. The financial aid office told me to take every dollar of loans that was offered to me. It amounted to about $2500/semester afte rtuition was paid for. Talk about predatory.
Gotta love commission based compensation for salespeople/student loan officers.
Even better, government guaranteed so it's literally zero risk to the guys underwriting this stuff.
re "cry me a river ..." :
True. And those kids are taking advice from the authorities that they have spent the last 18 years trusting: Parents, teachers ...
"Don't worry about that dear. It will all turn out alright. You will be better off, I wish I had a better education ..."
So while I'm pissed off at the kids for being so stupid, I'm more pissed off at the parents and teachers who are so ignorant and don't keep track of what is happening out there. Those kids put a lot of trust in you and now you are abusing that trust. In defence of the parents, many would simply be thinking "Well my way didn't work so try the other way" but they need to open their eyes and have a look around.
Of the kids that actually do think, they're thinking, "What do I trust? What I was taught, or those who taught me?"
Decisions, decisions ...
Go balls deep in debt folks. Debt is the one thing they won't try to take from you. Long EBT's.....
Thanks for the belly laugh. Actually they take all your future earnings, makes life kind of shitty.
There's going to be a whole lot of going 'balls deep' in these poor people graduating with worthless degrees and $200K of Sallie Mae debt to pay off.
It's a magic trick. Watch 1.2 trillion dollars disappear...
only until Google glasses make us smarter bitchez
WTF happened to wood shop, home economics, architectural drafting, auto shop, classes in HIGH SCHOOL?
I learned over 1/2 the shit I know in high school. I got taught MacGyver in High School.
BITCHEZ. I'm going for a walk to the beach, before the sun sets.
My son takes woodshop in HS...he is a sophomore. It's his favorite class and it's for the entire year...not just an elective..The teacher has his own woodworking family business, is no nonsense, and he has a great program.
One of the cool projects is making an entire electric guitar...wood, truss rod, hardware, electronics. The whole nine yards.Being my son is a guitar player, he is jazzed up for this project.
A class that is interesting, productive and has tangible results. Who would have thought.
Is he cutting and laying the frets or using a pre-fab facotry fretboard?
Your son is fantastic! I'm so glad he has that opportunity. The first thing I ever made in wood shop was a multi layered and beveled cutting board. I gave it to my Mother for Christmas.
It took forever to clamp all the pices of that project together. I also learned how to arc, mig/tig weld in High School. Bought my own gloves and mask even though the teacher was awesome and helped out.
To this day, I love welding. Don't get much time to do it, buy I can still draw a nice bead.
They can't afford those classes anymore. Funds are probably diverted to union dues and pension plans. Heck, we had wood and metal shop in grade school (7th and 8th) and half the kids produced actual furniture that would put IKEA to shame... when they were 12 years old!
I learned 90% of the shit I know in high school, 'cause I was a nerdy kid that paid attention and the teachers dug that. Came to college with a full semester's credits thanks to AP exams, died of boredom and dropped out with a 4.0 GPA in under a year. Wealthy as shit running a tech business with no college degree, because HS was worth a shit when I (and presumably you!) went to school.
I genuinely feel sorry for all the freaking ways the youngsters are getting fucked by the system today, it almost excuses the entitled attitude.
Parents need to haul the schools back into line and make them accountable. But these days both parents are too busy working.
+1 PT
you hit the nail on the head
I know. I asked my son why he wasn't taking any of those types of elective classes and he told me that they don't have any. The only two classes they have are auto shop and ceramics. Since all the gangbangers were taking auto shop, he opted for ceramics. Made a few nice pots and shit, but not quite as usefull as some of the electric gadgets and other stuff I made when I was his age. Guess that with China making that crap at 25 cents an hour, we don't need to know how to do that any more. Sigh!!!!
Lately electives have been getting the chopping block because politicians have been pushing for moar math and moar science. Their rationale, or lack there of, is to have moar STEM majors to compete with China. In the 80s and 90s it was 2 math credits, 2 science credits; now I've heard it's 4 math and 4 science. Advanced math is not for everyone. They'll go into these arcane calculus and trigonometry equations, but don't teach basic budgeting. Useless! At least for 97% of the students. What passes for science is beyond joke level. It's a bunch of Darwinism peddling. Those intelligent design/ evolution debates should be held in philosophy class instead. The actual hard sciences like chemistry, biotechnology, geology, astronomy, physics, are all reduced to side issues so the teacher can get on his/her soap box and and push their atheistic or Christian beliefs. Complete rubbish!
My guess is that the schools are trying to "save money" by cutting out all the practical stuff. It is up to the parents to keep a stern eye on their schools and to make sure every cent is accounted for. Parents? Whoops, they're both working. Now who has time to watch the fort?
Due to bureaucratic bungling, one of my apprentices made it all the way through high school without doing any woodwork or metalwork classes. He was pissed. I was pissed. But he turned out all right.
skools spend all of their funds on athletic fields and 6 figure admin salaries.
Same with the universities doc.
Administration and feel good progressivism happened. I took wood shop, metal shop, drafting and advanced calculus and physics in HS. And we programmed computers in Fortran using punch cards, but calculated with slide rules and logarithms. And we had gym and music including jazz and yes, it was a public school. So, education was very diverse in those days (the slide rule gives away how long ago that was).
We're in the process of devolution. Each generation since WWII has gotten lazier and more stupid since we demand so little. As Dickens wrote (also read in HS): "The best steel comes from the hottest furnaces" Ask little and thats what you get-the devolution of America.
What is it like to be a slave ?
When you cannot bear the penalty of saying "No"
See
http://andreswhy.blogspot.com/2013/09/slaves.html
When Slaves finally realize they can rebel :See
http://andreswhy.blogspot.com/2014/08/cowabunga-origin.html
http://andreswhy.blogspot.com/2007/02/napoleon-emperor-of.html
Slave owners always say that the slaves are better off under their caring supervision because they are too stupid to look after themsekves .
The slaves believe this . But it is not true . Smart behaviour can be learned .
Dare to be free and smart !
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com/2014/10/prodigies-update-ii.html
But it will cost you .
You have to pay it forward .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_it_forward
"Hear and tremblingly obey!"
As another poster put it on a similar thread 'the real function of the education loans is to keep afloat those colleges and fields of study that would be marginalized or eliminated entirely otherwise'. How many sociology, psychology, anthropology, archaeology, et al students does the country need?
More boring lists. We have to wait another five weeks now before another "Fifty Shocking Facts About Student Loans That You Never Expected."
I long for the old days of zerohedge.
His name was Tyler Durden.
The Baby Boomer's utter rape of the college generation is the very definition of a culture eating its seed corn.
You can walk away from a mortgage, but not a gov't loan. Let the millions perform a strategic walk away and let the IRS get backed the fck up trying to find em, garnish them, etc. Best thing left maybe for making the case against an all powerful gov't.
What happens when all the pollies have student loans?
Oh, silly me, they'll only give exemptions to pollies.
do we have actual delinquency rates on Student Loans?
I recall there was unclear data on this as the number of loans written off was not published, and of course there's that (very large cohort) in deferment.
It's a decent chunk of change and free labor but pales in comparison to all their hard work wrapped up in Peer Reviewed Academic Studies (appx. 4000 per day!) that are locked up, inaccessible properties of the Complex to use at their will. Top Secret companeros! Now we're talking money!
Must pour drinky .
gotta bounce!
I'm not sure it's significant that 28% of the total number of americans know that the U.S. government can garnish wages and withhold tax refunds if student loan debts are not repaid, as according to the article only about 12% to 13% are repaying student loans. The author should present the statistics in a manner that is easy for the reader to understand and compare to get an accurate assessment of the situation. The question is what percentage of the student loan debtors only know the answer to the above.
Obama forgives the debt of the ones he loves. Moochie sends them even more of your money, by the truckload. They can't steal it fast enough. Mitt Romeny is green with envy.
The rest of you are totally fucked.
Nothing matters for another year or so. DOW 50000!
Then. Well, it all matters. What matters most is the nature of the unprepared
What's really sad is that many of these individuals are economics majors and they have no idea as to what they're doing.
Just think, they may be running the government someday.
This scam has been going on for quite some time. I actually do feel for those entrapped, but the fault lies with them, their obliging and idiotic parents who should have known better, their predatory colleges they attended, and their public schools stopped teaching logic, critical thinking, etc. at least a generation ago.
It really is unfortunate that high schools stopped teaching exponents, compound interest and shit like that. I seem to recall learning that in junior high.
Too bad they didn't learn that every single thing the government gets involved in....costs rise pretty much vertically.
I guess learning enlightened social and liberal bullshit was more important. Felt good while it lasted.
Oh well. Nothing can be done about it now.
Pay your fucking bill.
This student debt is driving a lot of young college girls to seek Sugar Daddies. A whole new business has sprung up designed to connect rich old white men with young college girls. In exchange for presents and cash, the girls agree to dates, and weekends spent away. Although they deny it is paid sex, some girls admit that 90% + of the men who seek to go on dates ask for sex in return for the gifts and cash the men give. One girl says her best tip was 9K, others claim getting only a gift card for shopping, or an expensive holiday weekened. There are 4 girls registered to meet rich men for every rich guy registered, or was it 8 to 1? Anyways, the men had the pick of the litter. Girls admit openly they need the money, most cite college expense as the reason fro dating sugar daddies.
I was in a strip bar last Friday after work with a couple of co-workers. Worked late as it was monthend and we were closing the books for September monthend.
A cute blonde stripper approached me, sat down and started to small talk me about where I was from, and the like.
She asked me what I did for a living. When I told her she asked me if I liked my job. I shocked her by saying no. She asked me why I would do something I didn't like. I answered her that it paid the bills. I didn't think to ask her if she liked stripping, but instead asked her what she was using the money from her stripping gig. Did she have any plans for school, etc. She said she was still deciding what to do at school and took a year off after graduating high school. She was leaning to doing a program in physio-therapy or the like.
I guess the impression I was left with from this brief conversation with this girl was that she had this sense that it was more important to study a program that made her happy, rather than studying something that was practical and would enable her to find full employment and sustain herself.
Jack Burton: and that helps explain why so many women graduate and not so many men.
To quote the famous Hillary Clunt: "At this point, what difference does it make?" 1.2 trillion is chump change when compared to the 100's of trillions they will be responsible for when all the unfunded obligations come due over the next 50 years. How do you spell revolution? G-u-i-l-l-o-t-i-n-e-s.
what
I feel sorry for none of them.
If they didn't learn enough in high school about debt and money, mom and dad sure as hell should have been jumping up and down to stop them.
If enough people just stop doing these loans and instead learn a useful trade, the universities would have to lower tuitions due to a lack of enrollment.
It just comes down to living within means.
And Mr. Matherne, you need to chop your dick off.....and get that wife of yours to find a way to bring some money into the house, because I'm sick of paying your bills!
One sobering fact about student loans: It takes students years living in the real world to undo the Marxist Lesbian propaganda foisted on them in the fantasy world that is modern academia.
What do you get when you send a functionally illiterate high school graduate to college? A functionally illiterate burger flipper with $200,000 of debt.
After paying for all the really important college expenses such as their iPhone, beer, iTune downloads, coke, pot, tattoos, beer, pot, concerts, more tattoos and what-not most young students find there's no money left over for rent, utilities, books and tuition. It's really sad.
The government should pay their loans off or do something like grant them all free university education.
You forgot some of the other necessities, vacations eating out at cool restaraunts, sporting events. Hey they are being victimized by the greedy boomers so they are justified in deferring the debt and waiting for the bailout. It is tough paying back 100,000 with a sociology or culinary arts degree, I read of one poor victim who had piled up 200,000 for a degree in womens studies, we need to create some useless job in government so her debt will be forgiven.
this catastrophe was another engineered rothschild/rockefeller satanic plot on americans and people ( assuming that americans are people)...it was foisted on them by their parents, education crime syndicate, and the aforementioned satanists. it is profoundly evil. education should be nearly free and could be, especially with modern technology.
it is sad.
now if stupid indebted americans would vote for non-democrat, non-republican, non-communist (jews) candidates, they might be ablet to pass debt reform to handle the problem. but since the voting machines are rigged, they may as well pretend they will win the lottery.
Realistically, what should a uni course really cost? What are you paying for? You have to buy your own books and stationary. You're paying for a lecturer - who teaches 2000 or 3000 students at a time, not the 20 or 30 they teach at high school. You pay for the lab teachers - okay, now they have between 10 and 30 students ... for what? 6 to 10 hours per week? (Long time since I went to uni so I can't remember). I was in one of the more "intense" courses of ~ 20 hours contact time per week, but I have no problem believing there could well be an extra 20 hours work per week behind those 20 contact hours ... or not. You'll have to calculate your own.
We're also paying for fancy buildings and equipment. What equipment? CROs, function generators, spectrum analyzers, computers (fill in the equipment appropriate to your course) ... divvied amongst how many students?
Oh, but hang on. We live in a "capitalist" world. Profits are sacred and costs are irrelevant. You are entitled to charge whatever you can get away with charging. Ignore the bankster with the free money behind the curtain. You'd better borrow as much as you can, otherwise the other guy will borrow more money and you will be left behind ...
Undergraduate tuition subsidizes graduate student training and research. Its disgusting how much money they rake in off the undergrads relative to services provided.
Time to deport the H-1B's and Green Card holders. All of them. Back to India they go, so Americans can actually find jobs in the high paying sectors.
If all of the H1B and Green Card techies were deported, their jobs would likely just go with them. Why would the tech corporations pay double for a US Subject to do the same work?
Nope, the jobs would not go with them. And Americans are more than willing to work at their current wages. India can deploy them to, amongst other things, fix their national plumbing system so 600 million people don't have to defecate in the open.
A student loan is designed to help students pay for university tuition, books, and living expenses. It seems that many students are borrowing against their future at an almost unimaginable pace, unfortunately the money is often used for things other then education.
Too many young people and others taking student loans "living expenses" go on to include cars, trips, vacations and more. All this has a very dark side that will effect the lives of these borrowers going forward and has the potential to grow to crisis dimensions in the future.
In many ways society is encouraging young people to take on this debt and to hock their futures. This is akin to the, "I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today" way of thinking. More on this subject in the article below.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2012/04/students-borrowing-against-future...
The local newspaper wrote an article about what students do with the money from these loans.
Within the article, the paper interviewed 4 students asking them how much they owed, where were they in their studies so far, what were they studying, and what stupid shit have they spent the money on that they should not have.
All 4 students were in the midst of completing degrees in arts and soft science programs. 2 of the students were female and both were looking to complete something in the teaching field.
All 4 admitted to spending the money on spring vacations to places like Cancun, Cuba, Florida, as well as electronics like the newest Iphones, and in a few cases, a used car.
A few were entering into their 4th and final year in their respective programs. One of them was reporting $33,000 in loan-debt with 10 months to go.
Fair enough, but please remember that idiots can be used to crush sensible folks. eg. Free money to idiots allows houses to be bid higher to prices that are unaffordable to sensible people.
Find the idiots and present them as a representative sample of the whole.
Then everyone will happily blame the victims.
The propaganda works well.
I think these numbers are actually alittle bit generous.
Most if not all the people I know who went to grad school are 50K+ in debt....those with 6 figures of debt is actually probably higher.
The kids who get good corporate jobs after they're done with college get them because of family hookups more often than not.
IF you're parents are blue collar, the only way you're 'breaking out' is if you're a STEM student with super high grades and lots of internships..and those good internships go to the wealthy corporate families.
Those kids should choose better parents!
~Dipshitmiddleclasswhitekid
Disagree (to an extent)....
I grew up in blue-collar family living in trailer parks all over the midwest. Through lots of hard work (i worked three jobs all through college), i landed a job as junior trader. For nearly 10 years I never took off a full week of work. It paid off.
That said, I did see a lot of spoiled little rich pricks fly by me up the corporate ladder along the way. But instead of feeling sorry for myself, I used it to motivate me to kick their asses and do it all on my own.
Point is... I still believe hard work and a good attitude can pay off....
STEM is a one-way ticket to poverty in most cases. You can blame the H-1B visa for that.
Im in my mid 20s and I feel bad for my peers.
It's going to hold the economy back for another 20-30 years..if we make it that far.
Thankfully, I have no debts.
~Dipshitmiddleclasswhitekid
you mignt not have any private debt, but thank your local congress person for your share of public debt. Get to work debt slave
Isn't this the 99% payback against the 1%. Kind of.
We'll all get student loans, don't need to be a student.
As long as we get the amnesty too.
Just one group of banks trying to outdo another. If a new fad catched on that allowed everyone to borrow money then student loans would be in the shitter with housing.
Debt is growth, growth is good.
Part of the solution is to quit peddling the dream and aspiration of home ownership to the younger generation. "Ownership" as defined today is a kleptocracy run by the National Association or Realtors - ignoramous stay at home moms collecting 6% commissions, homeowner's insurance companies collecting premiums but denying claims, and of course, local property tax authorities who get suckers into the system so they can pay high school educated clerks defined benefit pensions (80% of final pay) until they croak. Even if you survive the mortage racket and payoff the loan, you are stuck with exhorbitant costs.
Prices will eventually fall when enough people stop playing the game and more untolds millions are working at Starbucks and Walmart as breadwinners.
40 million on Student loans
50 Million on Food Stamps
95 million unemployed
3 million behind bars
That makes 188 million who are in trouble
Could anyone add any thing further to the above list?
And Obola wants to bring in more immigrants !
Your math doesn't quite work right. Those are not mutually exculisve categories. Those 95 million are also probably at least one of the 40 or 50, and some times both...
The fault falls on government-guaranteed loans, overly optimistic young teenagers making stupid financial decisions, and greedy universities. What has happened is a perfect storm of government subsidizing university greed by backing unwise teenagers making stupid financial decisions based on unrealistic employment and income expectations upon graduation. If government hadn't backed these ever-larger loans, universities couldn't have raised tuition rates faster than US medical inflation.
Loan forgiveness, print moar $.
Problem solved. Move along...
Since the gov't has pretty much taken over student loans, the taxpayers (the few that are left) are on the hook for the debt.
Meanwhile, the grads are in indentured servitude to the gov't. nice, huh?
I imagine at some future time .gov will offer student debt forgiveness upon signing up for the military and a bonus for the African theater.
"we promised students jobs"...??????? who the fuck is "we"...
ALL THE "JOBS" HAVE BEEN SHIPPED OFFSHORE.... wake the fuck up...
let the fucking banks and financial institutions that gave the loans eat shit and die.... no more tbtf
just another shit for brains libtard program like all the rest .. diversity, quotas, crushing taxes, 179,000 pages of regulations,.... you can have a cancerous government or capitalism but not both... no capitalism no jobs... just useless socialist crony "capitalism" and useless socialist programs.... i laughed my ass off everytime i heard clintoon squawk in his arkansas drawl about government "investing" in some douchbag socialist program.... useless... you want JOBS ... unfetter capitalism, lower taxes, smaller government and less goverment intrusion... libtards and socialist are parasites that have crippled the ussa...
Why "should" these ex-students be shopping for a house? I've owned a house most of my life and I recommend to my children to rent. The state owns the home you "own" anyway. Miss paying your property taxes and find out just who really ownes your house.
My mortgage is 1000 which includes the loan, propery taxes and HOA dues. I've noticed that similar places are renting for 1800 to 2K these days in Seattle.
Why "should" these ex-students be shopping for a house? I've owned a house most of my life and I recommend to my children to rent. The state owns the home you "own" anyway. Miss paying your property taxes and find out just who really ownes your house.
No debt = the "new" rich
Q quick analysis:
#1 According to the Wall Street Journal, the class of 2014 is “the most indebted ever“…
Yes, this sucks.
#2 In 1994, less than half of all college graduates left school with student loan debt. Today, it is over 70 percent.
Tuition is on the rise. The key issue is whether they will be able to repay.
#3 Approximately 15 percent of graduate and professional school students leave school with student loan debt balances in the six figures.
How many of those are medical students? At least those can get jobs and repay the loans, or so we hope.
#4 At this point, student loan debt has hit a grand total of 1.2 trillion dollars in the United States. That number has grown by about 84 percent just since 2008.
This mega-sucks.
#5 According to the Pew Research Center, nearly four out of every ten U.S. households that are led by someone under the age of 40 is paying off student loan debt right now.
Six out of ten do not, then. What is the trend? Meaningless fact.
#6 The median net worth of young households that have student loan debt is 20 percent lower than the median net worth of young households that do not have any student loan debt and that are led by someone with only a high school education.
OK, fast-forward 20 years from now…
#7 Among college educated people, the median net worth of young households that do not have student loan debt is seven times higher than the median net worth of young households that do have student loan debt.
Another way of stating that rich parents pay for their kids’ school…
#8 In 2008, approximately 29 million Americans were paying off student loan debts. Today, that number has ballooned to 40 million.
This is a significant increase. Would make sense to compare similar numbers for other recessions – my guess is that kids go to school when they cannot find a job, so there you go.
#9 Since 2005, student loan debt burdens have absolutely exploded while salaries for young college graduates have actually declined…
Would be nice to see what drives this: for-profits, humanities, or something else?
#10 According to CNN, 260,000 Americans with a college or professional degree made at or below the federal minimum wage last year.
Absolute numbers, outside of context, are always meaningless. Always.
#11 Even after accounting for inflation, the cost of college tuition increased by 275 percent between 1970 and 2013.
This is scary and requires deeper investigation.
#12 Debt for law school students has risen dramatically over the past decade or so…
Absolute numbers, again…
#13 Last year it was being reported that 34.9 percent of all student loan borrowers under the age of 30 are at least 90 days behind on their student loan payments.
Would be nice to see, once again, what drives this – my guess is that we are talking about ITT and U of Phoenix grads.
#14 One survey found that 27 percent of those with student loan debt moved back in with their parents after college.
How does this compare to those without debt, controlling for parents’ income and other stuff?
#15 Another survey found that 70 percent of all college graduates wish that they had spent more time preparing for the “real world” while they were still in school.
Do you have a similar survey for the percentage of school drop-outs who wish they finished and the percentage of HS graduates who wish they have gone to college? Regret is a part of human nature.
#16 Student loan debt is causing many young Americans to delay getting married. The following is from a recent NBC News article…
Totally meaningless – an attempt to link two trends together just because they are both upward…
#17 Many Americans are not even using most of their student loan money to pay for college. Instead, many are using much of that money to pay bills or stock the fridge…
A couple of non-generalizable examples of stupidity.
#18 Only 28 percent of Americans know that the U.S. government can garnish wages and withhold tax refunds if student loan debts are not repaid.
And only 13 percent of Americans are paying off student loans, so as long as the 13 percent of Americans paying off student loans are among the 28 percent who know about wage garnishing, we are OK on this point.
Here is the pull quote from this article... and it says a lot, "#6 The median net worth of young households that have student loan debt is 20 percent lower than the median net worth of young households that do not have any student loan debt and that are led by someone with only a high school education."
Which means, the education the collages and universities are selling, rather than preparing students to engage effectively in the market system, has handicapped them. New Class progressive indoctrination apparently doesn't make you a good employee... or even employable.But hey the new class indoctrinators, (professors and staff) are making more money than ever.
Wait a second... I thought socialists don't like some people to make more than others? I guess they are capitalists with their money and socialists with other people's money. in other words... HYPOCRITES!
USA Student Loans indebtedness is over $1.3 Trillion with a 'T' and the reported $1.2 Trillion with a 'T' is wholeheartedly incorrect. Moreover,
tertiary education can't keep this up for much longer given the default rates and the rising costs for education because of a lack of productivity
on the growth markets, employment sector, et cetera. The countdown to doomsday 'subprime student loans' is upon us en masse. When this shit finally hits the fan it will spray all over Hillary Clinton's wrinkled prune face
just as she loudly proclaims another electoral victory for the Clinton Dynasty, and the clear benefits of enforced nepotism at the lowest levels of American political culture. The orthodoxy is clear to all throughout the world, and that institutionalized orthodoxy is 'greed is good' and neo-Liberalism has the 'God given right' to commit genocide in order to stay in power at any cost. The Bible says that 'those that are first shall be last and those that are last shall be first' but the Satanists
like the Clinton family and the Bush family say 'fuck the Bible' and 'fuck God's word' and 'fuck democracy' because 'we are American royalty and democracy is for 'little people that pay taxes' and not the wealthy that
always call for tax breaks. Corporatist fascism is the rule of the day in the land of the oppressed debt serfs that are in financial bondage.
Go subprime go!
As for me, I did not to see these facts to understand that we are facing a really huge problem. Since no one is doing anything, it only gets bigger and bigger. Do you want it to become the next crisis like it was in 2007 when entire America (and let me remind you that a lot of countries depend on the US. So, they had a pretty harsh downfall as well) got bumped into its face with a big wrecking ball of mortgage market. Honestly, just like we need to fix students buying essays online, we need to do something about student loans. I wish it was in my powers to fix things.