Once again, CD, hopefully unwittingly, panders to corporate interests by distracting from the real issue.
For-profit colleges, while problematic, are not what underlies the massive student debt.
It is the fact that student lenders are guaranteed payment of the entire loan amount, plus interest, penalties, and late fees accruedāwhen a student defaults.
That money goes to jthem NOW, upon defaultāand the US treasury has to try and collect from the unemployed or underemployed student.
They literally have NO RISK in making student loans, so they continue to do so, while at the same time working very hard to force students into default.
Whenever risk-free (for the lender) money is available, a bubble is created.
While I at one time earned enough money to pay down my loans, buy a house and so on, loss of job and marriage have made any sort of normal existence impossible for me. But I can never start over, despite the fact I paid on my loans for over a decade and tried to do everything rtight.
Put another way, if iād run up my credit cards and then lost my job, I could declare bankruptcy and start over.
But student debtors are the new sharecroppers, and if you donāt like it, suicide is the only way out.
Check the leading rising cause of death among middle-aged people (hint: itās suicide)āand you may wonder how much of a role student loans play.