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Saturday, May 26, 2018

101 People Owe Over $1 Million (Each!) In Federal Student Loans

Editor’s Note: Outstanding student debt reached $1.521 trillion in the first quarter of 2018.

Rising college tuition and meritless loaning practices by the federal government has led to a massive increase in the number of student borrowers with super-sized student debt.

There are 101 borrowers who owe at least $1 million in federal student, a 621-percent increase from just five years ago when 14 borrowers owed that much, according to Department of Education data obtained by The Wall Street Journal.

Orthodontist Mike Meru, 37, is one of those borrowers. Meru borrowed $601,506 to attend the University of Southern California’s program, he told The WSJ. Within a few years, his debt had swelled to $1,060,945.

Meru, who earned $225,000 as an orthodontist in 2017, makes monthly payments of $1,590 against his debt on a government-sponsored repayment plan, but that isn’t enough to cover the interest. His debt grows $130 a day, meaning his loan balance will exceed $2 million in two decades.

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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mike needs to get a part time job.

Anonymous said...

These people didn't run the numbers.

lmclain said...

The entire "student loan" thing is a scam. A rip-off scheme to keep people in debt forever.
I know one person who has a $4500 loan from about 4 years ago, on which he has paid hundreds of dollars so far.
His ending balance yesterday was $4200.
The list for hanging grows ever larger.

Anonymous said...

Lets not put 100% of blame on the government. Colleges and Universities are in on it as well. Let's take a look at SU. How else do they afford to pay top dollar for their "land grab". Of course our local loony government has helped with that as well. Why else does the president of the college make over 150/k $. They are essentially running a multi million dollar business.

Anonymous said...

Hello 8:16,
It's the government stupid. It's simple economics. They hand out money with no regard as to whether the borrower will be able to pay it back. This destroys the underlying market. The colleges can charge whatever they want because the government is handing them the money. There is no incentive for them to operate efficiently. There's nothing to keep them honest.

In the real world, there's just not that many great paying jobs for those LGBTQ majors. But they can sell these feel good degrees to snowflakes with no worry. They can even watch the future orthodontist run up more debt than he can repay.

Think about it. Would you lend money to people who can't pay it back? That's what the government is doing. Guess who ends up footing the bill? We, the taxpayers.