James Steele: Who Is Getting Rich Off the $1.3 Trillion Student Debt Crisis?

[proverbialwisdom]

http://www.democracynow.org/2016/6/29/who_is_getting_rich_off_the

Who Is Getting Rich Off the $1.3 Trillion Student Debt Crisis?
June 29, 2016

VIDEO AT LINK

Topics: Student Debt

Guests: James Steele, veteran investigative reporter and Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist. His recent article for Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting is titled "Who Got Rich Off the Student Debt Crisis."

We continue our conversation looking at student debt. A stunning 42 million people now owe $1.3 trillion in student debt. A new investigative report published by Center for Investigative Reporting peels back the layers on this trillion-dollar industry. The article, titled "Who Got Rich Off the Student Debt Crisis," follows what happened after the federal government relinquished direct control of the student loan program and opened it up to banks and profit-making corporations. We speak to Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist James Steele and Saul Newton, who was profiled in the article. Saul dropped out of the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point because of rising costs and student debt.

Please check back later for full transcript.

https://www.revealnews.org/article/who-got-rich-off-the-student-debt-crisis/



Who got rich off the student debt crisis?

42 million people owe $1.3 trillion in student debt.
It’s a profit center for Wall Street and the government. Here’s how we got into this mess.

A generation ago, Congress privatized a student loan program intended to give more Americans access to higher education.

In its place, lawmakers created another profit center for Wall Street and a system of college finance that has fed the nation’s cycle of inequality. Step by step, Congress has enacted one law after another to make student debt the worst kind of debt for Americans – and the best kind for banks and debt collectors.

Today, just about everyone involved in the student loan industry makes money off students – the banks, private investors, even the federal government.

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[Hoyt]

1. The real ones making money are the crummy for-profit-schools. I remember getting a government loan

"a generation ago" and it was not that easy. When loans were opened up to banks, that made it a lot easier (or course that can be good or bad). In any event, the best change we can make right now is to get rid of these rip off "institutions of higher learning" that leave graduates little chance of finding a job. Then, we need to enact more subsidies or outright grants to attend affordable public colleges. I'd support some debt relief too, but I think that's a little more difficult. While we are trying to figure that out, let's stop students from getting deeper in debt with crummy "colleges."

[proverbialwisdom]

2. How did college costs inflate so massively?

My non-college-educated, first-generation American parents put three children through prestigious private colleges without debt on one salary.

[Hoyt]

3. Because of easy loans/money and cruddy for-profit schools that take the money and run.

There has to be some restrictions on tuition for public colleges (except for elite schools, I guess) and governments need to quit cutting what they contribute. Prices of just about everything increases when money is easily available.

But you do have a point. I didn't go to a prestigious private college, but I went to a pretty good state university and I could have earned the tuition with a summer's worth of work fairly easily. I did live at home, which saved some bucks (although, I probably didn't have as much fun).

[proverbialwisdom]

4. More here.

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d07/tables/dt07_320.asp

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/can-you-still-work-your-way-through-college/
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/multimedia/tuition-work/

[Hoyt]

5. At first that seems startling, but I took a quick look at inflation since 1987 and the costs

pretty much track inflation. To keep education affordable, we have to do something about the cost and subsidies/grants. I don't know what the answer is, but clearly something needs to be done.

[proverbialwisdom]

6. Quick!

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-03/wall-street-has-its-eyes-on-millennials-30-trillion-inheritance

[benld74]

7. I read this started during CLinton Administration.

Not blaming anyone in particular, just attempting to find out what Bill was passed that started us down this road?

[proverbialwisdom]

9. This popped up yesterday while looking around online, however, it's unvetted and unverified.

http://www.healthcareadministration.com/college/

[fasttense]

8. It's not the schools making the big bucks. Like the video says, banks' profits are beyond colossal

The banksters are squeezing our children in every way possible. Ever since they got private-for-profit banks in the middle of it, it has been horrible. It's the huge interest rates that keep rising no matter what. It's a bubble and the banks are creating it. Do they really think a college grad or graduate school grad is able to pay back $100,000.00 loan while working a minimum wage job? There are NO good paying jobs for people who have to take out loans to go to college.

Now that college loans can NOT be discharged in bankruptcy like every other loan, it's a free for all with banks fighting to get these loans and repackaging them and selling them. Sound familiar?

I can't believe we are so abusing our children so that the uber rich can get richer and the banks can put our economy at risk yet again.