Student debt are often compared to the housing bubble; ready to burst at any moment, especially given the extensive amount of loans with no protection to the borrower. When you think of bubbles, you think of soft, fragile objects that pop as gracefully as they float. When you think about the student debt problem in America, it reminds me more of millions of glass bottles shattered beneath a boot. Not exactly the same image.
Colleges and Universities may charge whatever they like for the degree, and it doesn’t harm them if the person can’t repay it. And nearly half cannot. Bookies across the world are trying to recreate this formula. Figure out how to charge high interest on high loans and yet take no hit when the borrower can’t pay it back. It’s brilliant. Yet it’s no wonder that those graduating from college can’t find jobs, move out of their family’s house and are projected to have a lower standard of living than their parents for one of the few times in our history.
Even those finding jobs have little hope of repayment in the next decade or more. Banks and money scandals around the globe got off free of charge for facilitating the home loan disasters and wall street crash in the past decade. Now we are looking at another devastating crisis in our future. What happens when these loans burst? They don’t disappear in bankruptcy, we have no foreseeable loan forgiveness programs for those who “give back.” What shall we do from here?
By: Courtney Kidd, LMSW
SJS Staff Writer
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Excellent piece Courtney and unfortunately a reality for many. Universities are much more expensive nowadays.
As one who has been out of university for 15 years and still paying back loans from those days, I know the feeling, but I also believe it is the responsibility of the student to pay back the money they borrowed however small the amount each month or however long it takes.
There are many issues here-the high rate of tuition fees which just get higher every year (the same MSW program I was part of 17 years ago is double the price today!), loan forgiveness or a reduced payback amount is an excellent idea for any professional to work in an area that needs workers for a few years or a professional who volunteers their time to a worthy cause. Reduced interest rates is another. Lastly, are the tuition increases acceptable and truly needed?
Students here for CEGEP and university made quite a scene here in Quebec to complain about the tuition increases in the Spring and Summer of 2012 and they gained quite a bit of support from the residents and local government. While I applaud the ‘take to the streets’ approach it was disruptive to many-area residents, businesses, those students that still wanted to attend classes, closed streets down as in main artery streets in downtown Montreal and created so much noise…..and it was night after night, week after week and this is for a city/province that has the lowest tuition rates in Canada.
Perhaps advocacy needs to be done by students and by professionals-a return to grass roots in essence.