Put simply, how do we square that “college is worth it” from the increasing body of evidence that student debt is not necessarily good debt? The unsatisfying answer, of course, is that it depends.
The media shouldn't be scaring students away from going to college, because the alternative of not going is worse. Unfortunately, our move to a debt-for-diploma system is doing a good enough job of that itself.
President Obama is expected to announce an Executive Order that would extend the protections of Income-Based Repayment (or more specifically, Pay As You Earn) to student borrowers who took out loans before 2007 or stopped borrowing by 2011.
Brookings Institution researchers Beth Akers and Matt Chingos set the internet in a tizzy today with some “counterintuitive” research on student debt, with the takeaway for some being that student debt is not, in fact, the burden that the media (and policymakers) would have you believe. There are some pretty big caveats to their findings.
Nestled in Part H (section 499!) in the Democrats’ laundry list of ideas is an idea that has by far the most potential to solve one of the most vexing problems in higher ed: the rising cost of college.
"The steady erosion of state investment in public higher education over the last few decades reflects a stunning abdication of responsibility on the part of states to preserve college affordability."
Sticker price matters because sticker price inflation dictates how much the federal government spends. High sticker price is one of the main reasons the feds dole out almost $170 billion in grants, student loans, tax incentives, and work study money each year.
It’s hard to make broad causal inferences about student debt and homeownership among recent graduates, because there are simply too many factors in play.
Today the average college grad leaves school with just over $24,000 in debt, an amount that eats up $276 every month if you stretch the payments out over ten years and it’s a government loan with a 6.8 percent interest rate. Of course, one out of five students also carries more costly private loans, where interest rates are in the double digits and fees add to the balance. This debt-for-diploma system is what counts as opportunity in America today.
Their employment prospects are dim, their debt is high, their lives are on hold and a stunning number are living with their parents, even into their 30s.
White youths are more pessimistic about their economic future than young minorities, though black and Hispanic youth are more likely to be in a worse financial position right now.
As President Obama dusts off his 2008 theme of “hope” in anticipation of his reelection campaign, he has a problem to get around: Among young voters, one of his most crucial constituencies, hope is, like, so yesterday.
I wrote last month about how the economy could shift the youth vote more toward a GOP candidate. A report out today by Young Invincibles and Demos, called "The State of Young America," finds that even though young people are still optimistic about their future, they are the first generation to be worse off than their parents in many respects.
More than a third of young adults have delayed going to college because of difficult economic conditions in the United States, says a report released on Wednesday by the progressive nonprofit organization Demos and the advocacy group Young Invincibles. Exactly half of 18-to-24-year-olds reported less than $5,000 in total debt; 8 percent owed more than $25,000, according to the report, “The State of Young America,” which also collects data on college-completion rates, tuition and student loans, and employment and health insurance.
The report’s first chapter, Jobs and the Economy, explores how long-term trends and the current tumultuous economic environment has taken a toll on young Americans’ employment prospects, paychecks, and ultimately their earnings for years to come. Unemployment and underemployment rates for young Americans remain dangerously high, and almost 60 percent of employed young people say they would like to work more hours. At the same time, there is also a clear wage pay gap, gender pay gap, and education pay gap.
A new report from Demos looking at The Economic State of Young America shows that “average [higher education] tuition is three times higher today than in 1980.” “Average tuition at public 4-year colleges was $7,600 in the 2010 academic year, up from $2,100 in 1980,” the report notes, while “average tuition at private 4-year colleges nearly tripled in a generation, increasing from $9,500 in the 1980 academic year to $27,300 in 2010.” At the same time, the federal Pell Grant is covering an ever smaller percentage of th