article about student debt in the US

[woolymonkey]

A colleague posted this and I want to be able to find it again.  I don't claim to be anything other than confused and worried about the way education and education funding is going in England and I have no idea whether this gives an accurate picture of the US situation.  But as a parent and a  uni tutor, I'm nervously trying to put it all together and figure out what the hell is going to come next...

Comments welcome but response may take the form of a monkey silently wringing her paws.

Comments

[artaxastra.livejournal.com]

Oh, and let me tell you about the tactic of the teaser scholarship!

We believe so strongly that your son is a gift to humanity that we'll give him $5,000 a year just for being him! Before he goes to a single class or gets a single grade, we're so sure that he's amazing that we'll give him a scholarship of $20,000 (that's half an annual income for you working class parents) just for showing up! You just have to borrow the other $35,000 per year against his future earnings. And if you don't, you're throwing away a FREE $20,000 scholarship your son has earned with his potential to be the best of the best! Of course what this comes down to is Duke is "paying" Duke! It's a 12 1/2% discount to close the deal.

And the banks? They're for profit institutions. It's a good way to get 200% or more on their investment -- for thirty or forty years.

The problem is for profit colleges. They charge outrageously and earn huge profits. But as long as people are willing to pay for them, what can you do? If someone wants to spend their money stupidly....

I think the only way to stop it would be to make it illegal to lend the money to the student, to essentially give a huge loan to an eighteen year old with no income and no collateral. Unfortunately, what this would also do is kill the opportunity for kids from poor homes who honestly need to borrow the $6,000 for UNC.