New York Times series on the increasing cost of college
 

Part 1: People are stupid:
Student Loans Weighing Down a Generation With Heavy Debt - NYTimes.com
The article starts with a story that completely fails to move me about an eighteen year-old convinced by faculty and admissions staff members at Ohio Northern University to pursue her dream rather than obsess on the sticker price. She works two jobs (earning $225 a week combined--equal to her student loan payment), is moving back in with her parents, and owes $120,000, with a $900 monthly payment. Her father is a paramedic and her mother is a preschool teacher. She has four sisters [who will probably be attending community college]. Her parents got loans to help and they took out a life insurance policy on her (but some lenders forgive loans upon death).

They say she is in the top 3% of students with debts.

So, there are doctors that owe less?

“Roughly 11 percent of college students now attend for-profit colleges, and they receive about a quarter of federal student loans and grants.”

“Students at for-profit colleges are twice as likely as other students to default on their student loans. Moreover, among students seeking a bachelor’s degree, only 22 percent succeed within six years, compared with 65 percent at nonprofit private schools and 55 percent at public institutions.”

“Nationally, state and local spending per college student, adjusted for inflation, reached a 25-year low this year, [...] while, the cost of tuition and fees has continued to increase faster than the rate of inflation, faster even than medical spending.”

“[M]ost college students in the United States manage to eventually pay back their student loans.”

Student loan debt exceeds credit card debt.

Christina Hagan is a 23 year-old Ohio lawmaker earning $60,000, but owes $65,000 in student loans. When she graduates, she will wait tables to help make her $1,000 monthly student loan payment.

“In the late 1970s, higher education in Ohio accounted for 17 percent of the state’s expenditures. Now it is 11 percent. By contrast, prisons were 4 percent of the state’s budget in the late 1970s; now they account for 8 percent.“

How do they account for prisoners pursuing degrees?

In 2011 the Obama administration required colleges and universities to post calculators on their Web sites that explain the net price after grants and loans, but critics say they can be confusing, misleading or hard to find.

The article ended with the story of a forty-four year-old that dropped out after one semester at the community college. She decided to attend nursing school at a for-profit school which advertised no wait list. It will cost three times as much, but she will worry about it later.

There are six more articles. This one was six pages. I will summarize the rest after I study some more for the GRE. Have a great day! :)

Thanks to Montgomery gi bill no student debt for me. Never barrowed a penny.

Yeah everyone wants free college until they get offered free college.
The way I see it you get 2 chances for free college.
You actually work hard and do good in high school and apply for all the scholarships and stuff. (The easy way)
Or join the military.
Stupid kids think high school is hard. Ha!
The problem with high school to collage is most 20 year Olds have no idea what they want to do with their lives.
The vast majority of what I thought I wanted to do, nope.
Even what I thought I wanted to do in the military as my first choice. Airial gunner ha! So glad I didn't do that. Absolutely useless in civil life, as is being part of most weapons centric job field.

Part 2: Overpaid administrators
 

E. Gordon Gee, the president of Ohio State University, talked at length about eliminating wasteful spending, but received a compensation package that year worth about $2 million and billed Ohio State for $550,000 in travel in the last two years.

The Chronicle of Higher Education has called him the highest-paid public university president.

Mr. Gee said he planned to find $1 billion in inefficient spending in the university’s $5 billion budget over the next five years and redirect the money toward priorities.

"The university saved $20 million simply by switching to common vendors for pens, copiers and overnight shipping; previously Ohio State’s 14 colleges chose their own. Creating a common expense report will save $75 million."

“Every time I get a lot of money I cry,” Mr. Gee told the crowd. “And I got a lot of tears left.”

Part 3: Bankruptcy is rarely an option.
 

Doug Wallace Jr. graduated from Eastern Kentucky University several years ago with $89,000 in student loan debt, but diabetes left him legally blind within a couple of years, and he applied for bankruptcy protection. After six years, he still did not have a decision.

In 1976, politicians, tired of doctors and attorneys graduating and filling bankruptcy, tried to make it impossible.

In 2008, a 32-year-old, Mercedes-driving federal public defender with degrees from Yale and Georgetown with nearly $114,000 in total household income, but $172,000 in student loan debt filed for bankruptcy.

Applying to discharge student loans requires a completely different process than ordinary bankruptcy, requiring an attorney.

They cite some people who studied cases and up to 40% of applicants got at least part of their student loans discharged and those who had attorneys did not have better success.

"Radoje Vujovic, a North Carolina consumer bankruptcy lawyer, for instance, had more than $280,000 in student loan debt and just $23,000 in annual income."

They complain about making judges speculate about the possibility of applicants eventually being able to pay it off.

Last Chance to Shed School Loans - Proving All Is Hopeless - NYTimes.com

The vast majority believe they have a significant choice in what they will do for a living,

That is the problem,

the demand for what people want to do is very small compared to the number needed.

Further that the amount you will get paid doing what you love is usually not possible to live on.

A Facebook friend recently told me that a liberal arts degree was more well-rounded than a Bachelor's in Science. I joked "I found the liberal arts graduate!"
"No, I have a Bachelor's in Science."
I have one of each, but the B.A. led me to join the Army. The B.S. has helped me stay employed for a couple of years and counting.

I hate to say it, but slots in degree programs should be limited to the number of jobs available. I will be using the second degree to pay off the student loans from the first for some years to come.

The difference between a liberal arts degree and a A.S. or B.S. is a job.

Why do you think they don't? I certainly chose what I do. It's something that didn't really exist - certainly in nothing like its present form - when I graduated from high school, and has no relationship to what I did to earn a living for more than a decade after that.

But why should you even expect to get paid for doing what you love? The point of working is to make enough money so that you can afford to do the things you love when you're not working*. After all, isn't that why they call it work, and not play?

*And if you plan things well, accumulate enough in investments so that you don't actually have to work.

All the knowledge in the world is available to anyone with a passable connection to Internet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-YnnPN6Rts
The Faris Wald story is at 15:03. He's fifteen years old.

Of course most people pay off their student loans; they are mostly only forgiven upon death.

I can't think of many reasons why student debt should be forgiven. There is nothing to repossess, so it's an unsecured loan. If you provide a service to someone, in what instances should they not be required to pay as agreed, sometime in their lifetime, for the services you provided?