The Frisky: “I have a terrible secret that is making it difficult for me to get close to women: I have $190,000 in student loan debt. . . . I am ashamed and embarrassed to be burdened by such student debt, and I can’t help but feel most women would be scared off by it. As a result, I’ve basically stopped dating or even trying to meet that special someone.”
The College Scholarships (helping students pay for college since 1999) has a great graphic history of the student loan program in the United States.
I’ve said many times that one of the problems that arises from running up large student loan debt is that the debt can scare off prospective marriage partners. A lot of single people do not want to marry a person who has $100,000, $150,000, $200,000 or more in school loans that will require a lifetime to repay. For many, marrying into a big school loan debt means the couple may never be able to qualify for a home loan – the school loans replace a thirty year mortgage.
The New York Times has a article on the sad, but all too common topic. The article is “How Debt Can Destroy a Budding Relationship.” The article is a must read for everybody who is contemplating going into big debt to pay for school.
“At a time when even people with no graduate degrees . . . often end up six figures in the hole and people getting married for the second time have loads of debt from their earlier lives, it should come as no surprise that debt can bust up engagements.”
New York Times: “t if you borrow money to get an education and can’t afford the loan payments after a few years of underemployment, that’s another matter entirely. It’s nearly impossible to get rid of the debt in bankruptcy court . . . . This part of the bankruptcy law is little known outside education circles, but ever since it went into effect in 2005, it’s inspired shock and often rage among young adults who got in over their heads. Today, they find themselves in the same category as people who can’t discharge child support payments or criminal fines.”
I’ve been saying for some time that the higher education system in the United States is broken. Rather than existing to educate young people and prepare them for jobs in the adult world, institutions of higher education have become money printing machines for the people and organizations that run them. While the cost of an education goes up, the quality of the education goes down. It’s a win win situation for schools on the gravy train, but it’s a lose lose situation for the victims students. Consider reality:
1. It becomes harder to find somebody who will marry you. A lot of people will not want to marry into that kind of debt.
2. It may not be possible to get a loan to buy a home. School loan debts may replace home ownership as the big debt paid over thirty years.
According to University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds who wrote the article in the Washington Times linked to below, the cost of a college education has gone up 439 percent since 1982. Why? The higher education bubble is about to burst. Schools may set tuition at any amount and students will pay because they can borrow any amount necessary to finance higher education from an approved institution. Consider these actual tuition and total costs of school year numbers and ask why would anybody would spend the incredible amounts of money required to get a law degree in these difficult economic times. Below are the annual tuition and total expenses for nine months of law school at the indicated schools.
Washington Times: “First — as with the housing bubble — cheap and readily available credit has let people borrow to finance education. They’re willing to do so because of (1) consumer ignorance, as students (and, often, their parents) don’t fully grasp just how harsh the impact of student loan payments will be after graduation; and (2) a belief that, whatever the cost, a college education is a necessary ticket to future prosperity. Bubbles burst when there are no longer enough excessively optimistic and ignorant folks to fuel them. And there are signs that this is beginning to happen already.”
For more on this topic see: