student loans

Student Loan Debt Is Over $1 Trillion: As of last year, student loan debt exceeded a whopping $1 trillion. “Young consumers are shouldering much of the punishment in the form of substantial student-loan bills for doing exactly what they were told would be the key to a better life,” said Rohit Chopra of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau at the time.

House Republicans, led by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, have outlined a spending plan that would shift the interest rates back to their pre-2008 levels. Congress in 2007 lowered the rate to 6 percent for new loans started during the 2008 academic year, then down to 5.6 percent in 2009, down to 4.5 percent in 2010 and then to the current 3.4 percent a year later.

The report, released on Tuesday, lays out more than 30 recommendations for fixing the nation’s increasingly strained system of paying for college, chief among them a more substantial and permanent investment in direct aid to students through Pell grants.

Student debt jumped five percent for 2011 graduates compared to the debt load of 2010 graduates. It leaves young adults, typically just 22 years old, carrying an average debt of $26,600 before they even begin their first full-time job.
A rough job market is making things worse for them as 37.8 percent of recent graduates are working in jobs that do not require a college degree. These are low wage jobs and also likely to be part-time employment. The pre...