This is the time when everyone is making financial and economic forecasts for the upcoming year and beyond. Here is a simple forecast from Sober Look that did not require much analysis. By the end of 2014, student loan balances held by the federal gove…
The US Congress is nearing a compromise on the issue of student loan interest rates. Apparently loan rates will be changed from fixed to floating with an overall cap (see story). While rates are important, there is a much bigger issue at hand. Now with…
“Education is a bubble in a classic sense. To call something a bubble, it must be overpriced and there must be an intense belief in it. Housing was a classic bubble, as were tech stocks in the ’90s, because they were both very overvalued, but there was an incredibly widespread belief that almost could not be questioned – you had to own a house in 2005, and you had to be in an equity-market index fund in 1999.” ~ Peter Thiel on higher education for NRO.
Student debt in the United States has already surpassed the country’s auto loans and consumer credit card debt. A student loan bubble looms on America’s horizon, and promises dark times should it ever burst.
And earlier this month, the student loan problem worsened.
Today (Monday) federally subsidized Stafford student loan interest rates doubled from 3.4% to 6.8% after Congress failed to reach that would’ve maintained lower rates by the July 1st deadline.
I know a lot of you out there don’t have sympathy for student loan debtors who complain about their debt.
You see it as a matter of personal responsibility – they chose to sign a contract and so should suck it up and uphold their end of the deal.
Money Morning’s Capital Wave Strategist Shah Gilani says it best, though:
“You’re not wrong. But there are other forces exerting outside influence on the inner intentions of a lot of ‘students’ susceptible to being sold a bill of goods. Sometimes we’re stupid for being conned, and sometimes the con is just so cleverly concealed.”
Anyone wondering how to get out of student loan debt – or wondering if a slew of student debtors could try to do so – needs to read this.
Accepted wisdom says that there are only two (rather sobering) ways to relieve the burden of student debt: either pay it off, or depart from this earthly world.
Business has been good for the federal government when it comes to student loans.
Lee Adler has a nice post (here) on the latest employment data, pointing out that some of the seasonal adjustments in the government report are flawed. That’s in part why there was so much confusion when the numbers came out yesterday (post).It is ther…
