The Student Debt Trap

Good article in this subject. To me this is a sad commentary on the decay of institutional ethics. Viewed in this light, colleges look no better than any profit-hungry, self-interested enterprise, and worse than many.

She recently received a raise and now makes $22 an hour working for a photographer. It’s the highest salary she’s earned since graduating with an interdisciplinary degree in religious and women’s studies...She may finally be earning enough to barely scrape by while still making the payments for the first time since she graduated, at least until interest rates rise and the payments on her loans with variable rates spiral up. And while her job requires her to work nights and weekends sometimes, she probably should find a flexible second job to try to bring in a few extra hundred dollars a month.

Ms. Munna understands this tough love, buck up, buckle-down advice. But she also badly wants to call a do-over on the last decade. “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life slaving away to pay for an education I got for four years and would happily give back,” she said. “It feels wrong to me.”

I think this phenomenon will likely have some significant reverberations. People will have fewer kids, and people will have kids later in life. The latter is not such a great trend, in my opinion.

(Aside--the article didn't even comment on the dubious degree choice--religious and women's studies?!)