About two-thirds of the 20 million people who attend college every year borrow money to do so. We’ve heard a lot about how growing educational debt loads — the average student borrower now graduates owing $26,600 — can be a detriment to someone just starting out in life, and to the health of the broader American economy. Student debt loads are crowding out other things that young people historically spend money on, forcing them to delay marriage, home ownership, auto and other big-ticket purchases, investments in start-up businesses, and retirement savings.
Beth Simone Noveck and Carl Malamud are pushing the IRS to publicly disclose more data on tax-exempt groups, make it more accessible in electronic form, and to do so more promptly. Count me among the effort’s biggest cheerleaders. If this push succeeds, we'll have a better handle on a key sector in U.S. society—although we'll still be in the dark about crucial details of how nonprofits are funded.
Texas didn’t discriminate against minority voters. It was only because they were Democrats. And even if it did, the racial discrimination Texas engaged in is nowhere near as bad as the stuff that happened in the 1960s.
Credit cards. Mortgages. Car loans. These are the types of things that typically come to mind when thinking about your credit. But a bad credit history can do more than ruin your chances of getting a loan or landing a great interest rate -- it can cost you a job. [...]
So you aced the job interview. But can you pass the credit check?
That’s right, a growing number of employers are checking job applicants’ credit reports, even when the job doesn’t involve financial responsibilities and management.
About six in 10 employers conduct credit checks on at least some of their job applicants before deciding whether to extend an offer; 13 percent conduct them on all candidates.
It's no secret that sales taxes are a regressive way to raise revenues. And the heavy reliance on such taxes across the country explains why state tax systems tend to clobber the poor while asking little of the rich.
Once upon a time, we invested in our young people so that they could enter the world without debt. Now, we turn them into deadbeat debtors before they're old enough to legally buy a drink, left far behind their financial betters.
Americans are taking advantage of greater credit availability without a heavy reliance on plastic, a trend economists say bodes well for a healthy recovery in consumer credit.
The Federal Reserve reported Wednesday that consumer borrowing, excluding mortgages, surged ahead by $13.8 billion to $2.8 trillion in June, a 5.9 percent annual rate increase. Non-revolving credit, the category that includes student loans and auto financing, shot up $16.5 billion for the month, offsetting a $2.7 billion decline in credit card spending.
One of the sorriest American myths these days is that getting into enormous debt will secure a better financial future for today’s students.
Not only is debt a manacle for future generations, it’s not good for the country at large — a $4 trillion burden on future earnings and wealth.
When politicians make a stink about student loan rates, they’re smelling a rotten fish, but not the most obvious one. They should be berating colleges and our own broken higher education-funding system for not providing more grants — and less loans.
Forty eight years ago today President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed into law what would become the most effective civil rights provision in the history of the country: the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Back in June, that law was rolled back by a conservative Supreme Court majority who argued that the country had moved beyond discrimination in the voting process. This despite an election year rife with states introducing voter suppression legislation, which continues unabated, most recently in North Carolina.
Democracy North Carolina put together a one-page report that summarizes HB-589, the bill the General Assembly passed in late July despite the mass demonstrations outside the capitol that came to be known as Moral Mondays.
It's not so depressing if you think of it as 200,000 fewer purchases from The Dollar Tree over the course of forever. Currently, the average student debt balance for a household headed by two college graduates is $53,000, and according to a new study by research organization Demos, those households could end up $208,000 poorer over the course of a lifetime than a household with zero student debt.
I value what my dad thinks about things like romance and politics, but I avoid talking to him about education. The university of his memory is generous and forgiving; the student-debt-financial complex of my current experience is not. Example: he could've discharged his education debt in bankruptcy if things didn't work out after he graduated in 1970. Should my career fail, student loans and I will continue to be quite monogamous.
Getting a bankruptcy court to erase student debt is an extremely difficult, expensive and time-consuming legal maneuver.
In the run-up to the 2012 presidential election, reports of harassment and intimidation at the polls were so rampant in North Carolina that the state's top election official was obliged to send a memo to his employees reminding them that they could call police if necessary.
A student who takes out $53,000 in debt, the average amount for those attending a four-year public university, will experience a a lifetime loss of wealth totaling $208,000, according to a new report from the think tank Demos. It dives into the long-term costs of rising student debt and finds that for those who carry the $1 trillion in total student debt, their lifetime wealth loss will equal $4 trillion.
Following last week’s report showing that Ohio students who graduate with student loans hold an average debt of nearly $30,000, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) will outline a plan that would help Americans saddled with costly, private student loans refinance to more affordable options. During a news conference call today, Brown discussed how his bill would help individuals reduce their student loan debt by refinancing at no cost to taxpayers.
The North Carolina legislature has had a remarkable session. In fact, the amount they have been able to accomplish is almost jaw-dropping—not because it was particularly productive but because it was so bold and unabashed it its attack on low and middle income families and basic elements of democracy. Among the legislative lowlights: