Our son and his wife each have over $200,000 in student loans, and they didn't attend fancy ivy league schools. College is way more expensive now than it was when we were students, and these young kids have been victims of predatory lenders who charged exorbitant interest rates. Our son has been paying for at least 7 years, and has not yet started paying off the principal. I personally think there should have been more government oversight of the loan process, so the financial institutions were not taking advantage of the kids. As someone else mentioned, college is now the norm. When we were younger you could skip college and be assured of a good job. Not so much anymore unless you have the skills to get into a trade, which not everyone does. I'd like to see kids being given the opportunity to attend state universities/colleges for free for two years, the same way the government sponsors free high school education. I think our society has evolved to the point where that is needed. Any college education after that would be up to the individuals. As far as dealing with the existing debt, perhaps a scheduled forgiveness program if they serve a certain amount of time in certain volunteer/government sponsored programs like teaching in problems school districts for example.
|