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U.S. Students/Grads Carrying Over $1 Trillion In Debt
An anonymous reader writes "Time reports that American students and grads were carrying $1.08 trillion in student loan debt at the end of 2013. This compares to just $253 billion a decade earlier. Aggregate debt grew 10% in the past year alone. 'By comparison, overall debt grew just 43% in the last decade and 1.6% over the past year.' About 70% of students graduate with some amount of debt, and the average amount owed is $29,400. 'Delinquencies on student loans have risen dramatically over the past decade: 11.5 percent of graduates were at least 90 days late on paying back their loans at the end of 2013, compared with 6.2 percent delinquencies on student loans in 2003. Moreover, the Fed's figures on delinquencies hide more stark data: nearly half of all students with debt aren't currently in repayment thanks to deferments and forbearances and the fact that students are not expected to pay while they're in school.' An attached graph shows an alarming spike in delinquent loans that looks a bit like mortgage delinquencies did at the beginning of the sub-prime crisis."
In Finland, the government-backed student loan is tied to the student benefit, which you in turn get only for the typical length of the studies for that degree, so in practice you can only draw about €10,000 at maximum for a single 4-year degree. If your studies take longer than that, you have to pony up the extra money by yourself.
It can't be discharged by any bankruptcy proceedings. You are hooked for life once you take a loan in this form. We abolished debtors prisons sometime around 1800s, then indentured labor then fought a civil war to end slavery. Then created a debt that can survive even bankruptcy chaining the earnings of someone for life!
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
About 10% of the debtors owe more than $40,000. There is no reason to take on that much debt unless you are going to medical school.
No, the GP is not talking about upgrades at all. He (or she) is saying think in terms of total repayment, not percentage, not yearly payments, not monthly payments. That point is valid whatever the size of home you want to buy or upgrade.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Tell me again why college in the US costs sooooo much?
Colleges need to adapt so that university education doesn't become too expensive for all.
. In his book on administrative bloat, The Fall Of The Faculty, Johns Hopkins professor Benjamin Ginsberg reports that although student-faculty ratios fell slightly between 1975 and 2005, from 16-to-1 to 15-to-1, the student-to-administrator ratio fell from 84-to-1 to 68-to-1, and the student-to-professional-staff ratio fell from 50-to-1 to 21-to-1. Ginsberg concludes: "Apparently, when colleges and universities had more money to spend, they chose not to spend it on expanding their instructional resources, i.e. faculty. They chose, instead, to enhance their administrative and staff resources."
And when they had less money to spend, they did the same thing.
Administrator Hiring Drove 28% Boom in Higher-Ed Work Force, Report Says
University Administrative Glut Worse Than We Thought
Over the last 25 years the number of administrative employees at U.S. colleges and universities more than doubled, according to a joint study by the New England Center of Investigative Reporting and the American Institutes for Research. The ratio of nonacademic positions to faculty positions doubled at both public and private institutions. Overall, the industry has added an average of 87 administrative positions per day, a rate has scarcely slowed since the economic downturn, despite tuition increases. Even more surprising, academic institutions have added more administrative employees despite part-time faculty taking on more teaching duties than full-time professors.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
There still are. North dakota is having trouble filling high paying jobs as we speak
That and the highest rent in the nation. Unless you're living in company housing the cost of living in the Bakken is higher than NYC or San Francisco. And there's the fact that to have live IN North Dakota to work those jobs. The AMBIENT temp was -22F at my house last night. Yeah you'll make $80k-$100k a year, but you'll earn it.
"You can see I know very little about pimp policy." George McGovern.