The Unforgivable Debt

As of 2008 the cumulative student loan debt for Americans was $85,000,000,000.


College Student Loan Debt :
"A recent study by the National Center for Education Statistics (1) shows that about 50% of recent (undergraduate) college graduate have student loans, with an average student loan debt of $10,000. The average cost of college increases at twice the rate of inflation; the College Board (2) estimates that public school costs an average of about $13,000 a year and private schools costs $28,000. "


Graduate Students:
The average student loan debt of students attending:
– Public 4-year = $26,119
– Private 4-year = $29,000
Source: American Council on Education

"This debt-for-diploma system is strangling our young people right when they're starting out in life," says Tamara Draut, author of Strapped: Why America's 20- and 30- Somethings Can't Get Ahead. "It's creating a sense of futility that no matter what they do, they're not going to be able to get ahead. It's a sense of hopelessness."
source: USA Today

"The high level of student-loan debt is "on the brink of becoming an unacceptable social issue,"
"It's the single greatest problem facing this generation."

All of these statistics and statements were before the economic depression we are in.
Student loans can not be ignored, written off, or forgiven under bankruptcy.

Our higher education system has been greedy. I suspect that within the next five to ten years it will lose about 35% to 45% of its size and assets and almost all of its respect. Expect a back to basic degrees movement and a vast reduction in fees and tuition. We simply can't afford the luxury of a nonproductive American higher education system any longer.

God have mercy on the high school class of 2009.