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Congrats, Graduates! Here's Your Diploma and Debt
44 million households now hold student debt.
Apr 20, 2017
It's that time of year again. Flowers are flowering, spring is springing, and across the country college graduates are graduating with their newly awarded degrees held high.
Also high is the mountain of student debt most of these recent graduates are taking on. All told, 44 million Americans now owe student debt -- including 7 in 10 graduating seniors last year, who owe an average of $37,000.
If you're not one of those tens of millions of people, you might've missed how out of control student debt has become. Total student debt is approaching $1.4 trillion, surpassing auto loans and credit card debt.
Between job searches and apartment hunting, post-graduate life is already stressful -- and student debt makes it worse. The average monthly payment for borrowers in their 20s is $351.
If you're making minimum wage, that's 48 hours of work for your loans alone -- never mind shelter and food. No wonder more than 4 in 10 have either stopped making payments or fallen behind.
There is nothing positive about student debt.
Many indebted graduates begin their work lives with damaged credit histories and greater economic vulnerability. They're less able to start a business or work in public service. And they delay starting families and buying houses, which makes them less wealthy in the long run.
The only winners are the predatory loan servicing agencies.
One reason for the explosion of student debt is that states and the federal government have drastically cut education spending, forcing students and parents to pick up the costs. Public college spending is still $10 billion below pre-recession levels.
To make things worse, Trump's secretary of education, billionaire Betsy DeVos, is reversing protections put in place by the Obama administration to protect student loan borrowers by regulating loan servicing companies and capping interest rates at 16 percent (at a time when bank loan rates are below 6 percent).
It shouldn't be this way. And it doesn't have to be.
Ask the millions of people who attended college between 1945 and 1975 and graduated with little or no debt. Millions of baby boomers paid tuition at the great flagship universities of this land just by working summer jobs. That wasn't on a different planet -- it was mere decades ago.
Some places are experimenting with new models. At the city level, San Francisco has taken the lead by creating a free tuition program for anyone who's lived in the city for at least a year, regardless of income. It's funded by a voter-approved tax on properties worth over $5 million.
At the national level, Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Pramila Jayapal recently introduced the College for All Act, a plan Sanders got into the Democratic platform last summer. It would eliminate tuition and fees at public universities for those with incomes under $125,000 -- all paid for by a small sales tax on Wall Street trades.
These ideas could mean a brighter future for students to come. But what about for those already crushed by debt?
For them, there's a silver lining. When you owe $50,000, the bank owns you. But when the bank's trying to bleed you for $1.4 trillion, you own the bank.
It's time for the 44 million student debt households to flex our muscles and demand change.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
This column was distributed by OtherWords.
Chuck Collins
Chuck Collins is co-founder of CARP and author of Burned by Billionaires: How Concentrated Wealth and Power are Ruining Our Lives and Planet.
It's that time of year again. Flowers are flowering, spring is springing, and across the country college graduates are graduating with their newly awarded degrees held high.
Also high is the mountain of student debt most of these recent graduates are taking on. All told, 44 million Americans now owe student debt -- including 7 in 10 graduating seniors last year, who owe an average of $37,000.
If you're not one of those tens of millions of people, you might've missed how out of control student debt has become. Total student debt is approaching $1.4 trillion, surpassing auto loans and credit card debt.
Between job searches and apartment hunting, post-graduate life is already stressful -- and student debt makes it worse. The average monthly payment for borrowers in their 20s is $351.
If you're making minimum wage, that's 48 hours of work for your loans alone -- never mind shelter and food. No wonder more than 4 in 10 have either stopped making payments or fallen behind.
There is nothing positive about student debt.
Many indebted graduates begin their work lives with damaged credit histories and greater economic vulnerability. They're less able to start a business or work in public service. And they delay starting families and buying houses, which makes them less wealthy in the long run.
The only winners are the predatory loan servicing agencies.
One reason for the explosion of student debt is that states and the federal government have drastically cut education spending, forcing students and parents to pick up the costs. Public college spending is still $10 billion below pre-recession levels.
To make things worse, Trump's secretary of education, billionaire Betsy DeVos, is reversing protections put in place by the Obama administration to protect student loan borrowers by regulating loan servicing companies and capping interest rates at 16 percent (at a time when bank loan rates are below 6 percent).
It shouldn't be this way. And it doesn't have to be.
Ask the millions of people who attended college between 1945 and 1975 and graduated with little or no debt. Millions of baby boomers paid tuition at the great flagship universities of this land just by working summer jobs. That wasn't on a different planet -- it was mere decades ago.
Some places are experimenting with new models. At the city level, San Francisco has taken the lead by creating a free tuition program for anyone who's lived in the city for at least a year, regardless of income. It's funded by a voter-approved tax on properties worth over $5 million.
At the national level, Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Pramila Jayapal recently introduced the College for All Act, a plan Sanders got into the Democratic platform last summer. It would eliminate tuition and fees at public universities for those with incomes under $125,000 -- all paid for by a small sales tax on Wall Street trades.
These ideas could mean a brighter future for students to come. But what about for those already crushed by debt?
For them, there's a silver lining. When you owe $50,000, the bank owns you. But when the bank's trying to bleed you for $1.4 trillion, you own the bank.
It's time for the 44 million student debt households to flex our muscles and demand change.
Chuck Collins
Chuck Collins is co-founder of CARP and author of Burned by Billionaires: How Concentrated Wealth and Power are Ruining Our Lives and Planet.
It's that time of year again. Flowers are flowering, spring is springing, and across the country college graduates are graduating with their newly awarded degrees held high.
Also high is the mountain of student debt most of these recent graduates are taking on. All told, 44 million Americans now owe student debt -- including 7 in 10 graduating seniors last year, who owe an average of $37,000.
If you're not one of those tens of millions of people, you might've missed how out of control student debt has become. Total student debt is approaching $1.4 trillion, surpassing auto loans and credit card debt.
Between job searches and apartment hunting, post-graduate life is already stressful -- and student debt makes it worse. The average monthly payment for borrowers in their 20s is $351.
If you're making minimum wage, that's 48 hours of work for your loans alone -- never mind shelter and food. No wonder more than 4 in 10 have either stopped making payments or fallen behind.
There is nothing positive about student debt.
Many indebted graduates begin their work lives with damaged credit histories and greater economic vulnerability. They're less able to start a business or work in public service. And they delay starting families and buying houses, which makes them less wealthy in the long run.
The only winners are the predatory loan servicing agencies.
One reason for the explosion of student debt is that states and the federal government have drastically cut education spending, forcing students and parents to pick up the costs. Public college spending is still $10 billion below pre-recession levels.
To make things worse, Trump's secretary of education, billionaire Betsy DeVos, is reversing protections put in place by the Obama administration to protect student loan borrowers by regulating loan servicing companies and capping interest rates at 16 percent (at a time when bank loan rates are below 6 percent).
It shouldn't be this way. And it doesn't have to be.
Ask the millions of people who attended college between 1945 and 1975 and graduated with little or no debt. Millions of baby boomers paid tuition at the great flagship universities of this land just by working summer jobs. That wasn't on a different planet -- it was mere decades ago.
Some places are experimenting with new models. At the city level, San Francisco has taken the lead by creating a free tuition program for anyone who's lived in the city for at least a year, regardless of income. It's funded by a voter-approved tax on properties worth over $5 million.
At the national level, Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Pramila Jayapal recently introduced the College for All Act, a plan Sanders got into the Democratic platform last summer. It would eliminate tuition and fees at public universities for those with incomes under $125,000 -- all paid for by a small sales tax on Wall Street trades.
These ideas could mean a brighter future for students to come. But what about for those already crushed by debt?
For them, there's a silver lining. When you owe $50,000, the bank owns you. But when the bank's trying to bleed you for $1.4 trillion, you own the bank.
It's time for the 44 million student debt households to flex our muscles and demand change.
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