Here speaks a 31 yo unemployed writer with $35k of debt from wholly worthless schooling. I cannot tell you how many times I regretted signing up for university rather than buying a plane ticket destining me as far away as possible.

6 months ago I finally gave up. I quit my MBA program half way through and full time job as I was just indebting myself through the rest of my life and got the fuck out. I put the loans on forbearance. Went to live in a non-extradition country where almost no one has debt and the economy runs on cash. Life is much happier here.

One comment here gave me a good strategy I had not yet considered which bears further research: if student loans will follow one around like tax debt, perhaps I can use my avail credit to pay them off. It’s close to the same amount and although difficult it’d not as difficult to default.

Default…I’m starting to like this word….

But, you fail to point out that tuition increases have been skyrocketing all out of proportion to other costs – much in the manner of health care costs. Same problem; a product you feel you must have at almost any cost and lots of money (or credit) available for it.

College education is becoming another bubble. We don’t have jobs for all these college graduates. We have lots of unemployed degree-holders already. The Philippines tried this 30 years ago (educating your way out of the mess)and now they have a much better educated populace – but almost everyone is still underemployed or and wages are severely depressed because too much educated labor is available (its called supply and demand).

There are way too many people pursuing degrees for too few jobs that may not materialize and those jobs that materialize will be paying significantly less due to the marked labor glut that we already have.

How will those graduates ever pay these kinds of loans without jobs? In addition, there is too much tax money given to universities as it is. Too much of that money gets siphoned off by absurd administrative salaries and benefits, so they just raise tuition to keep themselves fat & happy.

Just another example of government employees living better than the private sector at roughly twice the cumulative compensation packages of private sector work. But, that will change as the private sector continues buckling under the tax loads that have been already placed on it, thereby wiping out tax revenues.

These loans must be taken by students because higher education has become over-priced. It has become way too high – just like houses got ridiculously over-priced when mortgages were given out like candy. It creates artificially high prices (tuition cost)and a glut of supply (degreed fast food workers).

Same thing will eventually happen with student loans as happened to mortgages. They will be going bad left and right. The government’s ratinale in pulling them back probably includes the reasoning that this gives them the ability to kick the can further down the road as far as repayment, when defaults go wild.

If you expect this to happen, wouldn’t you want to get the banks out of the picture so you could introduce a plethora of giveaways, accommodations, and forbearances by the government – financed by taxpayers – for all of these loans that will be going bad too. But, it will allow them to spread the losses out further over time, so the public doesn’t notice it as much.

But, not to worry, because we just need to keep printing more money and the drop in the value of the currency will make your $50,000 loan equivalent to a $5,000 loan, and all will be better – if you can find a job that is…

Difference is, in some states at least, real estate mortgages are non-recourse: you leave the keys on the kitchen table, walk away, take a hit on your credit for a few years, and you’re free. Student loans are as lampreysome as taxes: they’ll garnish you for the rest of your life to claw that money back.

You wanna see tuition prices come down? Get all the funny money out of the system. I won’t hold my breath.

I’ll admit that there is a concentration of wealth happening right now, but it is explicitly being caused by the government. Our economy is not, in any meaningful sense, capitalist. What we have is Corporate Welfare. A true laissez-faire capitalist system would have allowed the huge banks that screwed up to fail, which would have prevented further excess risk, since an implicit government guarantee would no longer exist.

Also, you complain about working in a gas station for five years… how elitist!? What’s wrong with that. Just because you went to college, you DESERVE a good job? Do you just expect that, if no one is willing to pay you for your services (because they’re worthless), that the government should create a job for you?! Maybe you can’t find a job because your field of “expertise” doesn’t add any value to the economy.

And Laurie, it’s totally true what you write about young people being duped into this myth. Everybody told me the same story when I signed a $9500 private loan for freshman year– “Don’t worry, everybody does it, you’ll earn the money to pay it back some day.” But what I think most “grown-ups” hammering out SAFRA are missing is that whether I send my checks to a Boardroom Fat Cat or to Uncle Sam himself, I and millions of other college students are still going to be struggling under massive debts precisely at the moment when our “adult” lives are beginning. Congratulations, graduates!! We’re already screwed.

Until universities curb spending and lawmakers realize that students need less debt and more actual AID (i.e. grants, scholarships, and other things that won’t haunt you in bankruptcy court), the cycle is just going to get worse and worse. We can’t afford any longer to continue confusing being able to pay for college with being able to borrow for college.