How Predatory College Loans Are Bankrupting the Financial Future of America's Youth

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/education/how-predatory-college-loans-are-bankrupting-financial-future-americas-youth



***SNIP

The Inflation of Higher Education

For the last 35 years, the costs of postsecondary education have been rising at unprecedented rates. According to Bloomberg and the U.S. Department of Labor, college tuition and fees have ballooned 1,120 percent since 1978—an inflation rate that is four times the consumer price index. A year of college tuition for an out-of-state student currently averages about $22,000 a year at four-year public universities.

Policy analysts, including Rachel Fishman at the New America Foundation, trace the skyrocketing costs of the last generation to two main variables: (1) Many schools have taken on heavy debt of their own to upgrade their facilities and better compete for faculty and students; (2) states have slashed public contributions to higher education due to budget crises.

“Many of these financial and educational institutions do not have student outcomes at the heart of their mission,” says Fishman. “Institutions have been shifting the costs to students through higher tuitions and fees.”

Some for-profit institutions capitalize on student aspirations by enrolling students with little regard to their academic or financial qualifications. And some specifically target students of color using slick advertising campaigns that emphasize racial diversity and hopes for a brighter future via education.

[MannyGoldstein]

1. Gee, is *anyone* in government trying to fix this?

Anyone?

Anyone at all?

[xchrom]

2. +1

[HughBeaumont]

3. Seems so easy.

So hey, let's instead listen to Paul Ryan and Rand Paul when it comes to the economy.

[Seeking Serenity]

4. Why is the focus of the discussion ALWAYS about student loans

and NEVER about the outrageously expensive cost of attending college? If higher education kept costs down, then students wouldn't need to borrow so much!

(My Republican husband has a take on this issue, but I won't share it here. But I can't say he's 100% wrong.)

On edit: I missed the part of the article where the author does explain a bit why college tuition and fee rates have gone up so astoundingly, but she seems to absolve college administrators and those who should know better from any proportion of fault.

[Laelth]

5. k&r for the truth, however depressing it may be. n/t

-Laelth