The student loan debt crisis has mushroomed into a national crisis, with 43 million Americans in debt for having gone to college. Their total debt is a whopping $1.3 trillion dollars. That's roughly 1 in 8 Americans that owes money for getting a higher education and trying to better himself or herself. The problem can no longer be approached at the individual level, with each person trying to figure out how to deal with the costs of higher education. We need a new national-level examination of the costs of higher education and how to fix the crisis. This book is for students, parents, and policy-makers.
Why fears about a looming student loan crisis are unfounded—and how they obscure what's really wrong with student lending College tuition and student debt levels have been rising at an alarming pace for at least two decades. These trends, coupled with an economy weakened by a major recession, have raised serious questions about whether we are headed for a major crisis, with borrowers defaulting on their loans in unprecedented numbers and taxpayers being forced to foot the bill. Game of Loans draws on new evidence to explain why such fears are misplaced—and how the popular myth of a looming crisis has obscured the real problems facing student lending in America. Bringing needed clarity to an issue that concerns all of us, Beth Akers and Matthew Chingos cut through the sensationalism and misleading rhetoric to make the compelling case that college remains a good investment for most students. They show how, in fact, typical borrowers face affordable debt burdens, and argue that the truly serious cases of financial hardship portrayed in the media are less common than the popular narrative would have us believe. But there are more troubling problems with student loans that don't receive the same attention. They include high rates of avoidable defaults by students who take on loans but don’t finish college—the riskiest segment of borrowers—and a dysfunctional market where competition among colleges drives tuition costs up instead of down. Persuasive and compelling, Game of Loans moves beyond the emotionally charged and politicized talk surrounding student debt, and offers a set of sensible policy proposals that can solve the real problems in student lending.
The untold history of how AmericaÕs student-loan program turned the pursuit of higher education into a pathway to poverty. It didnÕt always take thirty years to pay off the cost of a bachelorÕs degree. Elizabeth Tandy Shermer untangles the history that brought us here and discovers that the story of skyrocketing college debt is not merely one of good intentions gone wrong. In fact, the federal student loan program was never supposed to make college affordable. The earliest federal proposals for college affordability sought to replace tuition with taxpayer funding of institutions. But Southern whites feared that lower costs would undermine segregation, Catholic colleges objected to state support of secular institutions, professors worried that federal dollars would come with regulations hindering academic freedom, and elite-university presidents recoiled at the idea of mass higher education. Cold War congressional fights eventually made access more important than affordability. Rather than freeing colleges from their dependence on tuition, the government created a loan instrument that made college accessible in the short term but even costlier in the long term by charging an interest penalty only to needy students. In the mid-1960s, as bankers wavered over the prospect of uncollected debt, Congress backstopped the loans, provoking runaway inflation in college tuition and resulting in immense lender profits. Today 45 million Americans owe more than $1.5 trillion in college debt, with the burdens falling disproportionately on borrowers of color, particularly women. Reformers, meanwhile, have been frustrated by colleges and lenders too rich and powerful to contain. Indentured Students makes clear that these are not unforeseen consequences. The federal student loan system is working as designed.
With updated information that reflects the myriad changes in the student loan industry that affect students and their parents burdened with student loan debt, CliffsNotes Graduation Debt, Second Edition provides a step-by-step road map for effectively managing student loan debt and having a successful financial life. Reyna Gobel has accumulated tens of thousands of dollars in student loans, recovered from student loan default, and set herself on a mission to help others who face a seemingly insurmountable student loan burden, with a powerful message about taking a step-by-step approach and not being overwhelmed by the sheer weight of student loan debt. Divided into small subsections geared toward those neck-deep in debt, this book is easily digestible to students who aren’t inclined to focus on their finances. Readers are encouraged to take action steps, such as finding long-lost student loans that may have gone into default, discovering payment plans they can afford, consolidating loans when it makes sense to do so, saving money on eating out and groceries, improving credit scores, tweaking their debt-to-income ratios so they can buy a home, and discussing their student loan and non-student loan debt with their significant others. By the end of the book, readers will be on the road to financial stability, with extra money for vacations and other fun stuff, too.
"Student loan debt in the U.S. now exceeds $1 trillion, more than the nation's credit-card debt. This timely book explains how and why student loans evolved, the concerns they've raised along the way, and how each policy designed to fix student loans winds up making things worse. The authors, a father and son team, provide an intergenerational, interdisciplinary approach to understanding how, over the last 70 years, Americans incrementally, with the best intentions, created our current student loan disaster. They examine the competing interests and shifting societal expectations that contributed to the problem, and offer recommendations for confronting the larger problem of college costs and student borrowing in the future"--
A “bracing and well-argued” study of America’s college debt crisis—“necessary reading for anyone concerned about the fate of American higher education” (Kirkus). College is far too expensive for many people today, and the confusing mix of federal, state, institutional, and private financial aid leaves countless students without the resources they need to pay for it. In Paying the Price, education scholar Sara Goldrick-Rab reveals the devastating effect of these shortfalls. Goldrick-Rab examines a study of 3,000 students who used the support of federal aid and Pell Grants to enroll in public colleges and universities in Wisconsin in 2008. Half the students in the study left college without a degree, while less than 20 percent finished within five years. The cause of their problems, time and again, was lack of money. Unable to afford tuition, books, and living expenses, they worked too many hours at outside jobs, dropped classes, took time off to save money, and even went without adequate food or housing. In many heartbreaking cases, they simply left school—not with a degree, but with crippling debt. Goldrick-Rab combines that data with devastating stories of six individual students, whose struggles make clear the human and financial costs of our convoluted financial aid policies. In the final section of the book, Goldrick-Rab offers a range of possible solutions, from technical improvements to the financial aid application process, to a bold, public sector–focused “first degree free” program. "Honestly one of the most exciting books I've read, because [Goldrick-Rab has] solutions. It's a manual that I'd recommend to anyone out there, if you're a parent, if you're a teacher, if you're a student."—Trevor Noah, The Daily Show
This book analyzes reliable evidence to tell the true story of student debt in America. One of the nation’s foremost experts on college finance, Sandy Baum exposes how misleading the widely accepted narrative on student debt is. Baum combines data, research, and analysis to show how the current discourse obscures serious problems, risks misdirecting taxpayer dollars, and could deprive too many Americans of the educational opportunities they deserve. This book and its policy recommendations provide the basis for a new and more constructive national agenda to make paying for college more manageable.
Many students access student loans to help finance their education, and last year federal student loans helped 9 million Americans to make that investment in their futures. The Obama Administration has taken several steps to address the challenges of ensuring that all students who could benefit from a college degree are able to attend a quality school, graduate, and then repay their loans on manageable terms after they graduate. Contents of this report: Federal Student Aid Facilitates High-Return Investments: Recent Trends and the Current State of Student Debt; Borrower Characteristics and Loan Size; Student Loan Repayment; Student Loans, Other Individual Outcomes, and the Overall Economy; Administration Efforts to Help Students Better Invest; Conclusion. Figures and tables. This is a print on demand report.
Higher education today faces a host of challenges, from quality to cost. But too little attention gets paid to a startling fact: four out of ten students -- that's more than ten percent of the entire population - -who start college drop out. The situation is particularly dire for black and Latino students, those from poor families, and those who are first in their families to attend college. In The College Dropout Scandal, David Kirp outlines the scale of the problem and shows that it's fixable - -we already have the tools to boost graduation rates and shrink the achievement gap. Many college administrators know what has to be done, but many of them are not doing the job - -the dropout rate hasn't decreased for decades. It's not elite schools like Harvard or Williams who are setting the example, but places like City University of New York and Long Beach State, which are doing the hard work to assure that more students have a better education and a diploma. As in his New York Times columns, Kirp relies on vivid, on-the-ground reporting, conversations with campus leaders, faculty and students, as well as cogent overviews of cutting-edge research to identify the institutional reforms--like using big data to quickly identify at-risk students and get them the support they need -- and the behavioral strategies -- from nudges to mindset changes - -that have been proven to work. Through engaging stories that shine a light on an underappreciated problem in colleges today, David Kirp's hopeful book will prompt colleges to make student success a top priority and push more students across the finish line, keeping their hopes of achieving the American Dream alive.
Every parent wants the best for their child. That’s why they send them to college! But most parents struggle to pay for school and end up turning to student loans. That’s why the majority of graduates walk away with $35,000 in student loan debt and no clue what that debt will really cost them.1 Student loan debt doesn’t open doors for young adults—it closes them. They postpone getting married and starting a family. That debt even takes away their freedom to pursue their dreams. But there is a different way. Going to college without student loans is possible! In Debt-Free Degree, Anthony ONeal teaches parents how to get their child through school without debt, even if they haven’t saved for it. He also shows parents: *How to prepare their child for college *Which classes to take in high school *How and when to take the ACT and SAT *The right way to do college visits *How to choose a major A college education is supposed to prepare a graduate for their future, not rob them of their paycheck and freedom for decades. Debt-Free Degree shows parents how to pay cash for college and set their child up to succeed for life.
