Trump’s silence on student loan crisis is deafening

The Hill ^ | March 1, 2017 | Alan Collinge

[GuavaCheesePuff]

The nation owes about $1.5 trillion in student loans today. Nearly $1 trillion of this was added during the last president’s term. Student loan debt has skyrocketed past credit card debt, and all other revolving consumer debt combined. By the end of next year, the country will pass the $2 trillion mark.

This debt is strapped to 44 million people in the country, who carry an average debt of $34,000. Interest alone on this amount is about $90 billion per year. In President Trump’s joint session address last night, however, he said absolutely nothing about the student loan problem.

[SaveFerris]

[ No, the nation does not owe about $1.5 trillion in student loans. Students who borrowed it owe it! ]

Oh man, you have got to get with the new modern Obama-talk.

Up is down, down is up, wrong is right, right is wrong, good is evil and evil is good.

Now, let’s try again.....

[rrrod]

Millennial scum need to pay up.

[SaveFerris]

[..He’s an activist..]

at .... a minimum ...... (cough)

[the_individual2014]

I’ll be fair college loans is a scam in a way, but then again it is the fault of them for taking so much money they cannot pay back not Trump or the Government, also they could have went to a lesser college or taking 1 or 2 classes a semester while working, just an example of critical thinking.

[LostInBayport]

You paid off your loans, early, at great personal sacrifice. Did your college degree cost as much as a house?

No, it didn't.

If it had, I surely wouldn't have signed those papers. I would have found a different path in life. As it was I remember blinking in realization at the numbers on that truth in lending statement ("this is what your are borrowing", "this is the interest", "here they are added together; try not to puke". Had they been tripled or quadrupled that still small voice would have been screaming "mayday."

But I knew a thing or two about money by then.

[Parmy]

Every so ofter I get call from my old school. They usually have some sweet, little voice giving me a 'pitch' about how education is so important and wouldn't I like to contribute.

I usually ask them how they are funding their education. The standard reply is help from home and loans. I then tell them that I paid for my education myself by working.

Then I tel them that they can't bankrupt their loans and that they owe the payback until they are paid off.

That is when I hear an audible gasp.

[Moonman62]

I think they should be allowed to sue their liberal professors and administrators for a refund. We need to stop subsidizing liberal indoctrination centers with student loans.

[central_va]

When I add up my tuition form ages ago(1970s) and adjust it for inflation it comes out to around $9,000(2017) dollars. So I paid the price of a pretty average used car for my college education. Now it costs what the average house costs. You are so right.

[Persevero]

There is a way. My kids have done it. Do your first two years at community college and then transfer. Get grants and scholarships. Work. Use savings. One graduated with a STEM degree and a wife (!) and owed 30 grand. One graduated with a STEM and owed six grand. One graduated with an English degree and money in the bank. She lived at home which saved a great deal; no dorm.

[AndyJackson]

And student loans have enabled this enormous rise in costs, explained not by a commensurate rise in the cost of academic salaries, but by the Parkinsonian like growth of the collegiate bureaucracy. Look at the number and salaries of deans, etc. like the scandal existing in Janet Napolitano’s office at the University of California.

[WKUHilltopper]

“The nation owes about $1.5 trillion in student loans today.”

Bull sh*t if I owe it.

[bboop]

Call Dave Ramsey. Pay your bills. Don’t go into debt. Grow up. We all paid for our college educations/ duh.

[Revolutionary]

There should be a course by course table of the maximum amount money that could be loaned for that course. Add them up for the semester loan amount and so on. Things like gender studies that have no potential to pay back the loan would have a value of zero. Since the government now controls the majority of loans, this could have a major impact and send the liberals off the cliffs.

[TomGuy]

Oh man, you have got to get with the new modern Obama-talk.

I still have trouble trying to accept all of the 'new normals' Obama and the Libs tried to sell for 8 years.

[gunsequalfreedom]

You borrowed the money. Pay it back.

[gunsequalfreedom]

“The nation owes...”

Yea, I caught that too.

[caww]

If most parents really looked at the cost of education, loans, etc. they might think twice about the real value they're getting for the investment when all is said and done.....too any drop out and others done’t go into the filed they were educated in.

I'm very big on apprenticeships and other opportunities besides 4 yr. degrees.....because our Universities have way too many fluff programs and not enough of what these kids really need.

[edie1960]

President Trump’s advocacy for “Earn While You Learn” APPRENTICESHIP programs likely offers many young people a more practical and productive path for the future.

[caww]

bboop.....both my sons worked their way through college. One got his degree plus going for four years.....the other worked for several years at getting his education while raising his family...but he got there and a good job as well.

[CurlyDave]

What I paid for tuition in the late 1970’s is peanuts to what it costs now even after adjusting for inflation. There is no way now to pay as you go. No way.

The primary reason for the increase in college costs is the availability of student loans.