Posted on 12/08/2011 6:39:54 AM PST by SeekAndFind
The Occupy Wall Street movement is a big tent of concerns and deliberately so. Keeping the flaps open draws in as many people in as possible, even if it does prevent the movement from issuing a list of demands.
But a visit to its Manhattan base in Zuccotti Park quickly reveals that a binding hardship for many of the younger protesters is their student debt. It’s an impression strengthened by “ We are the 99 Percent”, a slogan invented by the movement, and the address of a website that’s an online home for hundreds of people’s stories. Debt taken on to pay for a university education is a common theme and complaint.
We know how disastrously Americans’ love affair with mortgage debt ended. Three years and an anaemic recovery later, questions are being raised about an accumulation of student debt that some forecast will exceed $1trillion (£637bn) for the first time next year. The New York Fed put the total at $845bn at the end of the second quarter.
It’s not just those in the Occupy Wall Street movement asking the questions. Student loan delinquency, or late payments, has been climbing this year and was at 6.10pc in October, according to data from Equifax and Moody’s Analytics. Although default rates have eased over the past couple of months, economists at Moody’s expect them to rise again next year as jobs remain hard to come by.
Though few are suggesting that student debt is another time bomb ticking under America, there’s concern that a rise in defaults will prove another drag for the recovery.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk ...
They are dead serious about wanting student loan forgiveness.
And it may prove to be a powerful political weapon when the Democrats are really up against it. (vote for us and we’ll cut your existing balance in half...)
Student debt is part of the current crisis that faces this country, the more so because much, if not most of it, has been Federalized, and given the stame status as Federal taxation.
In any bankruptcy, when it comes to discharge of debt, Federal student loans are treated differently than other unsecured debts. In most cases, while the commercial lenders are forced to release the debtor, the student loans still remain in force, and continue to accrue penalties.
Small wonder that hopelessness pervades the “OWS” crowd. But their grief is not due to Wall Street, it lies at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, and the intransigence of lawmakers who will not address the problems of escalating college tuition and associated costs, far in excess of the other commonly accepted indices of inflation.
After all, there is a certain degree of symbiosis between the college campuses and the Federal government establishment.
I would be looking with a keen eye at the amount of available cash that these so-called “elite” schools have in their endowment funds, and be asking “Really?”
Student loans, public employee pensions, and fanny/freddy debt are a few bubbles that have to burst.
The OWS “movement” may not have issued any specific demands... that will be left for Obama to articulate. There job was to attract as much Media attention, and to draw in as many disaffected as possible. They’ve done that. Now they can go home until springtime. They will be back.
The slogan was created by the bowel movement known as the Obama administration.
There = Their. Ugh!
If student loans are forgiven on a large scale, it will simply destroy the market for future student loans. It will pop the bubble. You will see many students unable to attend expensive universities, tuitions will fall, endowments will crash, and you will see a lot of smaller colleges fail.
Who knows? just like Wall Street, that could be the Libs plan. They would then step in and complete “Nationalization” of higher education.
I WORKED MY WAY THROUGH COLLEGE! GRADUATED WITH NO DEBT!
IF I CAN DO IT, ANYBODY CAN!
IF "STUDENTS" DON'T WANT IT BADLY ENOUGH TO WORK THEIR WAY THROUGH--DIRECT THEM TO THE NEAREST MOP STORE!
RE: I WORKED MY WAY THROUGH COLLEGE! GRADUATED WITH NO DEBT!
Did you go to a public or private college?
That any student go into tens of thousands of dollars of debt to get totally worthless degrees is not the fault of capitalism. It’s the fault of the impractical students and greedy, bloated Big Education.
You never see signs railing against Big Education carried by unwashed OWS types.
So could you explain exactly how the student loan bubble could burst?
To me it seems impossible. People will be paying student loans (minimum payment) until they die as Debt Slaves.
— I WORKED MY WAY THROUGH COLLEGE! GRADUATED WITH NO DEBT! —
Sure you did, back when annual college expenses + living expenses didn’t exceed $60k for even second tier schools. I think student loans should be abolished, but not for the reason that “if Savage Beast could do it then they can too”.
At many so-called “public” colleges, the state has reduced taxpayer support to a small fraction of operating costs. At my alma mater, the University of Virginia, the state contributes less than 10% of the university's budget. The same is true at the University of Michigan. At the same time, students and their parents demand spa-like recreational facilities and luxurious dorm suites with common areas, private bedrooms, kitchens, and multiple bathrooms, not to mention hordes of hand-holding advisors to remind jack and Jill that, yes, they have to satisfy the “core” math and science requirements before they can graduate.
American univresity students are the new sharecroppers in this country.
“Massah university president, if’n I borrow all dis money to pay my tuition, don’t it mean that I’m jes spreading out my payments to you over the next 30 years? Won’t I be in bondage because of you?”
“Shut up and give me that check, boy! I’ve got to pay the Democrats.”
and Government spending is the biggest bubble of all.
What was it that the Italian official told his people the other day. “The Working people have given all they can, their is no more to give”.
Applies here as well.
good for you, but I am sure your college didnt cost $50,000 per YEAR.
Are you kidding!
Yes! There were colleges that cost $50,000 a year at the time. I couldn't afford them. So I went to the local community college. After two years of that, I went to the state university.
I LIVED WITHIN MY MEANS!
I WENT TO A COLLEGE I COULD AFFORD!
AND I WAS A MILLIONAIRE AT AGE 40! A MULTIMILLIONAIRE AT AGE 43! AND I RETIRED TO LIVE ON MY INVESTMENTS AT AGE 53!
In fact--I went through 8 years of college without going into debt!
All in all, I have had something like 20 years of college without going into debt!
And what's more--I ESTABLISHED A SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM TO SEND INDIGENT PEOPLE TO COLLEGE! I DO NOT KNOW HOW MANY PEOPLE I SENT TO COLLEGE!
AND--I PUT MY WIFE THROUGH 4 YEARS OF COLLEGE!
AND ALL THIS WITHOUT GOING INTO DEBT!!!!!
If you want to whine about the cost of a college education--and the need for a handout--YOU ARE TALKING TO THE WRONG PERSON!!!!!
If you borrow $200,000 to go through four years of college--you are a FOOL!
If you borrow $200,000 to go to college with the intention of paying it back, you are a fool!
If you borrow $200,000 to go to college without the intention of paying it back, you are a soundrel!
you tell him/her
I too went the Junior College(community college) and then state .. NO DEBT
same with grad degrees.
I think parents are insane to get their self in deep debt when other options are there
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