Student Debt

Help Today’s College Students As We Did For Previous Generations

May 23, 2019 By Chuck Collins, Inequality.org Create! Higher Education, Student Debt, Students

When I speak on college campuses, I ask students to write the amount of debt they anticipate graduating with on a slip of paper. In a recent class of 25 undergraduates at Boston College, just eight will graduate without debt, either because of full scholarships or family wealth. For the rest, an imposing debt looms — $40,000 on average, but with six reporting more than $150,000. Can you imagine being 22 and having $150,000 in debt? This is generational abuse. Previous generations were propelled forward by free or very low-cost higher education at land-grant universities and robust free college systems in states like California and New York.

Student Debt Is At All-Time-High Of Over $1 Trillion

February 27, 2019 By Alexandre Tanzi, Bloomberg.com Educate! Education, Higher Education, Student Debt

More than a decade has passed since young Americans faced debt levels this high. Debt among 19 to 29-year-old Americans exceeded $1 trillion at the end of 2018, according to the New York Federal Reserve Consumer Credit Panel. That’s the highest debt exposure for the youngest adult group since late 2007. Debt levels play a role in how young adults view their spending conditions, according to a University of Michigan survey Friday. Younger adults -- those under age 35 -- have reduced their spending compared with previous generations possibly because of weakened job prospects, delayed marriage and educational debt.

How Activists Are Moving The Dial On Student Loan Debt

January 9, 2019 By Siona Peterous, Inequality.org Create! Activism, New Economy, Student Debt

Student loan debt has just reached an all-time high of $1.465 trillion. That’s double the $675 billion in loan debt amassed in June 2009, according to a recent report from Bloomberg. With more than 44.5 million people in some type of student loan debt, it’s increasingly becoming part of the platforms of high-profile progressive policymakers. The national conversation has come a long way in the years since activists started pushing the issue of student debt during the 2008 recession. Now, incoming Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is vocal about the idea of student loan debt cancellation and Sen. Bernie Sanders talked about making public college tuition-free during his presidential campaign.

Back When College Was Debt-Free

June 12, 2018 By Josh Hoxie, Inequality.org Create! Debt, Higher Education, Student Debt, Tuition

As May gives way to June, the last college grad ceremonies are wrapping up and the last parties are coming to a close. Now the job hunt for recent grads begins in earnest — with the looming specter of student loan payments drawing ever closer. Today’s average student debt is around $37,000. But in America’s largest state, it wasn’t that long ago that any student could get a world-class, debt-free education — regardless of their economic background. That state was California, and Gail Leondar-Wright was one of those students. Gail came from a middle-class family — her dad was an engineer and her mom a stay-at-home parent. She attended UC Berkeley from 1976 to 1980, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in theater. At the time, the elite public school was tuition-free and required a mere $600 per year in fees, or just under $1,400 in today’s dollars.

To Grow the US Economy, Cancel Student Debt

February 11, 2018 By A.P. Joyce, MIC Create! Debt, New Economy, Student Debt

A report from a group of economists at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College finds that there would be huge benefits if the federal government were to forgive all existing student debt. This would ripple out from young people struggling to pay off massive college loans to the economy as a whole, according to the report. “The idea of canceling student debt is not just some crazy idea out of left field, but is actually something that could be done, and done in a way that has a moderately positive economic impact,” Marshall Steinbaum, a fellow and research director at the Roosevelt Institute and a coauthor of the report said in an interview. “The way this and similar polices are often discussed is in a mode of ‘well can we really afford this?’ and the answer is definitely yes,” he added.

This Is US: Student Debt Devours Young And Old

February 11, 2018 Lynn Petrovich, End the Illusion. Educate! Banking and Finance, Student Debt, Student Loans

Over the past decade, through tax preparation work – both pro bono and paid - I’ve seen many student loan borrowers who, like Monica, have struggled not only to make ends meet, but also try to understand what’s happening with regard to their student loans. I’ve watched as refundable credits in the thousands of dollars have been seized by federal and state agencies year after year to pay for student loan debt.

Student Debt Slavery II: Level The Playing Field

January 7, 2018 Ellen Brown, Web of Debt Blog Educate! Banking, Public Banks, Student Debt

The lending business is heavily stacked against student borrowers. Bigger players can borrow for almost nothing, and if their investments don’t work out, they can put their corporate shells through bankruptcy and walk away. Not so with students. Their loan rates are high and if they cannot pay, their debts are not normally dischargeable in bankruptcy. Rather, the debts compound and can dog them for life, compromising not only their own futures but the economy itself. “Students should not be asked to pay more on their debt than they can afford,” said Donald Trump on the presidential campaign trail in October 2016. “And the debt should not be an albatross around their necks for the rest of their lives.”

Student Debt Slavery: Bankrolling Financiers On Backs Of Youth

December 28, 2017 Ellen Brown, Ellenbrown.com Educate! Banking and Finance, Higher Education, Student Debt

The government, too, had to be enslaved by debt. It could not be allowed to simply issue the money it needed to meet its budget, as Lincoln’s government did with its greenbacks (government-issued US Notes). The greenback program was terminated after the war, forcing the government to borrow from banks – banks that created the money themselves, just as the government had been doing. Only about 10% of the “banknotes” then issued by banks were actually backed by gold. The rest were effectively counterfeit. The difference between government-created and bank-created money was that the government issued it and spent it on the federal budget, creating demand and stimulating the economy. Banks issued money and lent it, at interest.

Student Loans, 21st Century Indentured Servitude

December 17, 2017 Julian Vigo Educate! Education, Jobs and Wages, New Economy, Student Debt

I have seen the student loan crisis up close from both sides of this polemic. First, as an extremely young student who was “sold” the only way to get an education—in addition to joining the U.S. Army and working throughout my degree—I was able to earn my first degree. And then later as a university professor who witnessed the student loan industrial complex rise, especially in its abetting the marketing campaigns for graduate programs from the 1990s onward. Such marketing strategies were personalized to arouse anxiety within the public, targeting the insecurity of individuals who “only” had a Bachelor’s degree.

Student Debt Means Fewer Public Servants — And More Bankers

June 30, 2017 Alyssa Aquino, www.otherwords.org Educate! Bankers, New Economy, Student Debt

By Alyssa Aquino for Other Words - Collectively, America’s student borrowers owe $1.7 trillion. On average, each graduating senior this year is beginning their life around $37,000 in the hole. That looks like a lot, but when you’re living with student debt, you look at that number and don’t even flinch. The debt is so normal it’s like an inside joke for pretty much everyone in my generation. Except we’re the punch line. I graduated class of 2015 from a private, liberal arts college — a “most selective” one, U.S. News and World Report assures me. It was also an expensive degree, Sallie Mae reminds me. Monthly. Yes, I chose to go to a private, expensive college. There was a calculus there, and one part of it was “I liked the feeling of it.” I know, this type of sentimental idealism is a privilege. It’s no surprise I came out with the equally sentimental notion that I wanted to do non-profit work — which makes it that much harder to pay those loan bills. It’s baffling to my Filipino parents. They didn’t cross the ocean and consign themselves to discrimination and demeaning jobs because they liked the “feel of it” — or even on the promise that their lives would be better. They did it on the promise that my life would be better. And that I wouldn’t owe anyone anything.

U.S. Women Disproportionately Burdened By College Debt

June 15, 2017 Lauren Kaori Gurley, www.alternet.org Educate! New Economy, Student Debt, Student Loans

By Lauren Kaori Gurley for AlterNet - American women owe nearly twice as much of the nation’s $1.3 trillion in student loan debt as men do, according to a recent study. Since the 1950s, major strides have been made to shrink the gender gap in enrollment at American colleges and universities, and today, women make up 57 percent of college students in the United States. But despite these gains, women face disproportionate burdens when it comes to student loan debt—a lifelong economic disadvantage that can weigh down graduates for decades after they’ve earned their degrees. The student loan debt crisis is frequently cited as one of the primary reasons millennials are waiting longer than previous generations to move out of their parents’ homes, have children and get married. According to an American Association of University Women study, women are facing these challenges at higher rates than men. The reasons behind this discrepancy stem from a number of interrelated factors, including the unremitting gender wage gap. Today, women earn 10 percent less than men when taking into account factors including occupation, experience and education.

Newsletter – The People’s Plan For Transformation

April 22, 2017 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, www.popularresistance.org Newsletter climate crisis, Education, Finance and the Economy, Health Care, Immigrant Rights, National Improved Medicare for All, Net Neutrality, Powell Memo, Science March, Student Debt, Worker Rights and Jobs

By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese. It is important to understand that we arrived in this situation by, what Moyers described as "careful long-range planning and implementation…consistency of action over an indefinite period of years..." By understanding this plan, we can realize that we can design a way out of it. This includes seeing through the propaganda and exposing the truth; not allowing ourselves to be divided into issue-based silos or taken off track by the agenda of a plutocratic political party; and organizing not just to resist, but more importantly to demand the changes we require in our communities and on the planet. Popular Resistance is one of the conveners of The People's Congress of Resistance, a grassroots effort to build resistance and collaboration in our communities to solve the crises at hand and create a better world. One of the purposes of the conference will be to plan the future of the resistance movement and determine how we can work together more effectively. It's time for the people to create a plan for the transformation we need.

The Student Debt Crisis Is Exploding

April 18, 2017 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.PopularResistance.org Resist! Debt, Education, Student Activism, Student Debt, Student Loans

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers for Popular Resistance. The level of student loan debt has risen to $1.5 trillion and defaults are more than 40% and rising. U.S. student loan debt has grown to overwhelm all other categories of non-housing consumer debt in this nation. Underneath the crisis are rising tuition costs, a predatory student loan industry and an absence of consumer protections for students. What is the student debt movement to do? Of course the Biden bankruptcy protections should be repealed but that is not enough. We need a complete student loan debt forgiveness program. These debts are ill gotten gains and should be forgiven. If the government refuses to forgive these debts, people must rise up together and refuse to pay any student loan debt. The people have the power to end this injustice and must mobilize to do so. A student loan debt jubilee, whether mandated by law or put in place by the people, will bring economic freedom to tens of millions, end their debt servitude and allow them to participate in the economy. It will be a significant economic stimulus, but more importantly it will end an injustice.

In Rust Belt Town That Covers Tuition, Economy Revives

March 12, 2017 Gabriel J. Ware, www.yesmagazine.org Create! Finance and the Economy, Higher Education, Student Debt

By J. Gabriel Ware for Yes! Magzine. Autre Murray, 24, never planned to go to college. He thought he couldn’t afford it—even with student loans. Besides, he wasn’t thrilled with the prospect of ending up in “debt up to the neck.” Instead, Murray planned to earn a high school diploma and find a job doing manual labor, maybe somewhere like a factory. He told himself he didn’t need a college education to become successful. But now he’s on his way to obtaining a bachelor’s degree, as are other members of his Kalamazoo, Michigan, hometown. That’s thanks to the Kalamazoo Promise, a scholarship program first announced at a board meeting of Kalamazoo Public Schools in November 2005. The nonprofit of the same name provides scholarships that cover 65 to 100 percent of college tuition and fees for all graduates of Kalamazoo Public Schools who meet certain criteria.

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