Interesting op-ed in The New Republic:
"...for most college students, debt is a legitimate and growing problem. As recently as the early 1990s, most undergraduates didn’t borrow. Now, two-thirds emerge from college with a loan. Over the last three decades, college tuition has grown far faster than inflation, in good economic times and bad. Even health care costs have grown slower by comparison. Colleges like to blame feckless state legislators who won’t financially support higher learning, and in states like California they certainly have a point. But much of the guilt lies with higher education institutions themselves. They have spent billions on vanity building projects, administrative overhead, and money-losing sports programs in order to compete for status and fame. Students and parents have been left with the bill.
At the same time, the economy has increasingly organized itself so that people require a college degree in order to pursue a decent career. Unemployment rates during the great recession have been catastrophic for the uneducated even as graduates have mostly kept their jobs. So students and parents have little choice: pay what colleges choose to charge you, and if you don’t have the money in the bank, take out a loan."
For what it's worth, the White House is trying to get the message out that it's making an effort to Help Americans Manage Student Loan Debt.
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