For the one in five Americans with student loan debt, it is a hellish nightmare. To others, it is an investment opportunity. Last week’s news on student loans provided a glimpse on both sides of this growing divide. First, there were the sequester budget cuts, implemented by means …
It turns out Lambert’s mother-in-law research is pretty good. A February 27 report from Orono, Maine: Long conversation between the driver of the municipal shuttle bus, a chatty type, and a passenger. She’s going to back to school to become a nurse (“those will be the last jobs …
A new report from the New York Federal Reserve further confirms what many commentators have been long saying — student debt is the bubble that just keeps expanding. Total student debt has nearly tripled in the past three years. Total student debt stands at $966 billion as of …
Techniques currently used by student loan lenders bear an “uncanny resemblance” to those used by subprime mortgage lenders leading up to the subsequent housing bubble burst and financial crisis of 2008, according to a new report by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Students are facing impossible barriers in paying off their loans …
Let’s take a trip deep into the magic kingdom of “Laissez Fairyland” and prostrate ourselves before the infallible and inscrutable force known as the free market. While this awesome deity cannot be seen, the high priests of free-market fundamentalism insist that we mere mortals must simply have faith that its …
From CREDO: We wanted to give you an update on our fight to address the crushing student debt crisis. First, some good news. We temporarily stopped the interest rate of federal student loans from doubling thanks to your activism. CREDO Action members signed over 320,000 of our petitions to lawmakers, …
Where does the Occupy movement turn next? Can social movements build on its momentum? Will protest and new forms of mobilization create change to transform the economy to one that works for people and the planet? When would-be Occupiers pitched the first tents in New York’s Zuccotti Park eight months …
By Chris Hedges In Robert E. Gamer’s book “The Developing Nations”is a chapter called “Why Men Do Not Revolt.” In it Gamer notes that although the oppressed often do revolt, the object of their hostility is misplaced. They vent their fury on a political puppet, someone who masks colonial power, a …
1. The number of students who have to go into debt to get a bachelor’s degree has risen from 45% in 1993 to 94% today. 2. There is now more than $1 trillion in outstanding student loan debt in the United States. 3. Over the last 10 years, tuition and …
You could call it a bubble, but it’s more like a ball and chain. Bubbles are, after all, light and airy. The collective weight of American student debt is now over $1 trillion, and that weight is a drag not just on those paying the debt, but on our entire …