Lifetime Sentence: College Debt
This is from CNN/Money.
Approximately two-thirds of all students use loans to pay for their higher education, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research using data from the College Board. The average debt for students graduating in 2003-2004, the latest data available, was $15,622 for public schools and $22,581 for private.
As recently as 1990, only 46.2 percent of students at public schools took out loans, averaging just $9,798 in 2004 dollars. Private school debt in 1990 averaged just $15,054.
Call it a reverse dowry: college debt diverts careers and delays or impedes graduates' plans to get married, buy a home or even to start a family. The effects can last years.
A 22-year old student graduating this year who consolidates their $40,000 loan at 6.125 percent will need to pay $243 a month...until they're 52. By that time, they will have paid $47,494 in interest alone. . . .
"We've never done this to a generation of young people before," said Dr. Heather Boushey, Senior Economist at the progressive Center for Economic and Policy Research. "We've never put a generation in their 20s in debt they can't get out of before they started their work life." . . . .