Pretty sad trends in this article. Some good graphics in the article to look at. What are your thoughts? What should be done, and how?
Some excerpts:
"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 student-marketing company Edvisors."
"A little over 70% of this year’s bachelor’s degree recipients are leaving school with student loans, up from less than half of graduates in the Class of 1994."
"The good news for the Class of 2014 is that they likely won’t hold the title of “Most Indebted Ever” very long. Just as they took it over from the Class of 2013, the Class of 2015 will probably take it from them."
"A good rule of thumb is that undergraduate and graduate students should borrow no more for their entire education than their expected salary at graduation."
"The problem developing is that earnings and debt aren’t moving in the same direction."
These are indeed pretty depressing trends. Does anybody know why in the second graph there is a pretty big spike in the percentage of students taking on debt from 1993-1995? For earnings, I am guessing part of the decrease has to do with the crisis, so hopefully in the next few years we can benefit from a bit of upswing.
ReplyDeleteI just did my exit counseling for student loans and the US gov informed me that I need to make a salary of 96k + unless I want to have high student debt burden. Something feels not righty here.
ReplyDeleteThese results really make the prospects of offsetting the inequality gap look grim, I mean the gap between earnings and what the students owe is ridiculous and it doesn't look like it will be getting better soon. The government really needs to step in and help with reducing this indebtedness.
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