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Tuesday, December 03, 2019

The Student Loan Bubble - Gambling With Your Future

Have you heard? The Democrats are going to fix the student loan mess! They’ve brought up the issue in almost every Democratic Party presidential debate. All we need is a good government program and we can easily solve this $1.64 trillion problem.

Never mind that government programs caused the problem in the first place.

The student loan bubble continues to inflate. Student loan balances jumped by $32.9 billion in the third quarter this year, pushing total outstanding student loan debt to a new record. Student loan balances have grown by 5.1% year-on-year.

Over the last decade, student loan debt has grown by 120%. Student loan balances now equal to 7.6% of GDP. That’s up from 5.1% in 2009. This despite the fact that college enrollment dropped by 7% between 2010 and 2017, with enrollment projected to remain flat.

In a nutshell, we have fewer students borrowing more money to finance their educations.

Before the government got involved, college wasn’t all that expensive. It was government policy that made it unaffordable. And not only did it manage to dramatically drive up the cost of a college education, but it also succeeded in destroying the value of that degree. Peter Schiff summed it up perfectly:

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's like an arsonist fire fighter. You light the fire then want credit for putting it out.

Anonymous said...

Colleges should use their endowment monies to pay off these student loans instead of building more libraries on campus. Or use the Federal grant money. Where is all these funds going - professors, board of directors? Taxpayers should NoT pay student debt.

Anonymous said...

Check out Berea College in Kentucky. Free tuition to qualifying students. But they have to work on campus. The poor who think they could never afford to go to college should check them out.