Higher education has become one of the biggest money-making scams in America. We tell all of our young people that if they want to have a bright future, they must go to college. This message is relentlessly pounded into their heads for their first 18 years, and so by the time high school graduation rolls around for many of them it would be unthinkable to do anything else. And instead of doing a cost/benefit analysis on various schools, we tell our young people to go to the best college that they can possibly get into and to not worry about what it will cost. We assure them that a great job will be there after they graduate and that great job will allow them to easily pay off any student loans that they have accumulated. Of course most college graduates don’t end up getting great jobs, but many of them do end up being financially crippled for decades by student loan debt.
In all of American history, we have never seen anything quite like this student loan debt bubble. Since 2007, the total amount of student loan debt in America has nearly tripled.
Let me repeat that again.
Since 2007, the total amount of student loan debt in America has nearly tripled.
But of course the quality of college education has not tripled over that time. Instead, it has progressively gotten worse. At this point most college courses have been so “dumbed down” that the family pet could pass them. If you would like to look into this more, you can find a list of 37 of the most idiotic college courses in America right here.
These days, most college courses do not require any actual writing. Instead, your performance is judged by a series of “tests” consisting of multiple choice, fill in the blank, and true/false questions. And the questions are usually ridiculously easy, because most of our high school graduates need to take remedial courses in basic skills when they get to college.
I spent eight years at public universities, and the quality of education that I received was a joke, and that was many years ago. Now the quality of education has deteriorated so dramatically that most college degrees are essentially worthless from a practical standpoint, but for many professions you still need that “piece of paper” in order to “qualify” for certain jobs.
So the scam continues, and thousands upon thousands of “administrators”, “diversity specialists”, “career counselors” and “college presidents” are taking home massively bloated salaries at our expense. Beautiful new lecture halls, residential complexes and sports stadiums are going up at colleges and universities all over the country, and textbook publishers are laughing all the way to the bank.
If everything but the basics was stripped away, the cost of actually delivering a college education to students would be quite low. In fact, most learning could be done over the Internet.
But instead, the “college education industry” has convinced all of us that we desperately need their services, and that we shouldn’t care about the price.
Of course many of our young people are filled with regret once they get out into the real world and they realize that student loan debt is going to financially cripple them for the rest of their lives.
At this moment, America is drowning in more student loan debt than ever before. The following are 11 rage-inducing facts about America’s wildly out of control student loan debt bubble…
#1 The student loan debt bubble has now grown to 1.4 trillion dollars.
#2 In 2007, the total amount of student loan debt in the U.S. was just 545 billion dollars.
#3 Over the previous ten years, student loan debt has grown by a staggering 176 percent.
#4 Americans now owe more on their student loans than they do on their credit cards.
#5 In 2003, student loan debt accounted for just 3.3 percent of all household debt. Today, that number has grown to 10.5 percent.
#6 The current student loan 90-day delinquency rate is 11.2 percent.
#7 30 percent of all student loans in the United States are either in “deferment” or “forbearance”. The most common reason a loan is placed into one of those categories is because the borrower cannot pay.
#8 It is being projected that a whopping 40 percent all student loan borrowers will default on their loans by 2023.
#9 From 2007 through 2017, “college tuition costs jumped 63 percent, school housing surged 51 percent and the price of textbooks by 88 percent.”
#10 In 2001, 18.6 percent of all U.S. households led by someone in the 18 to 34 age bracket were carrying household debt. Today, that number has jumped to 44.8 percent.
#11 Each year, more than a million Americans default on their student loans.
This article originally appeared on The Economic Collapse Blog. About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is publisher of The Most Important News and the author of four books including The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.
This article is part of the propaganda campaign to malign college education. While student debt is a very real scandal (and could be resolved if Republicans would stop insisting on gouging student loaners with 7% interest rates and simply allow loans at near zero interests rates, or at the same rate that banks loan to each other, as proposed in a Democratic bill that has been deep-sixed by the same troops trashing public education.
Here is one reason Elizabeth Warren is feared and demonized by the Republicans on behalf of their financial sponsors: “WASHINGTON — Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) unveiled her first bill Wednesday, designed to set student loan interest rates at the same level the Federal Reserve offers to big banks.
With some student loan rates set to double on July 1 — from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent — Warren’s bill would reduce student loan interest rates to 0.75 percent, opening the Fed’s discount window to students.”
Here are the facts: college graduates today have an unemployment rate of 2.6% while those without a degree have a rate over twice as high
College graduates make a million more in their lifetime, paying $200,000 more in taxes and using $100,000 less in social welfare than non-graduates.
Students today are smarter than ever. The slightly lower SAT scores are explained by the fact that not only the elite now go to college but many of those formerly disqualified. But if you need help navigating through the digital culture which has taken over the modern world, go to a 12 yr old and they will make you look like a total idiot. Try it.
As for the “worthless” classes, I decided to pick one from Harvard, our top private University, to see what it was about…and it is a discussion seminar for freshmen that is anything but “dumbed down.” Here is the class description: “We find ourselves in the middle of fierce political debates. Should the common folk have political power, or should it be concentrated in the hands of an elite? Is our national interest best served by looking inward and directing our resources toward local concerns, or by thinking globally about both threats and opportunities? How do we balance concerns for economic growth, humanistic understanding, religious freedom, and scientific advancement? Our answers to such questions are enormously consequential, and even people of good will can find themselves in heated disagreement, labeling opponents as the enemy and striving to drive them and their ideas from the public square. The Athenians of 2400 years ago didn?t conduct their political battles with tweets and hacks and super PACs, but they would easily recognize our battles as versions of their own, fought over much the same ground. At a particularly heated time, they used the lethal power of the courts to silence Socrates, one of their own. Our task is forensic. We?ll assemble the available evidence to determine why the Athenians killed Socrates. His views were complex ? certainly he doesn?t align neatly with any of our own major political parties, and he?s difficult to categorize even in the context of ancient Athens. So what was so offensive or threatening about him as to provoke such extreme measures? Once we?ve assembled our evidence, we?ll formally try Socrates in absentia for ourselves. Was he guilty? And what should be done with people who spread dangerous ideas?”
Course open to Freshman Students Only
Articles such as this, which are common, repeat the same lies and myths and ignore the same truths and realities, in order to make the case that the reason young people are rejecting the old myths of capitalism and “the greatest nation on earth” is because being less brainwashed, they are open to new ideas and have mastered the new technology which leaves their elders bewildered.
In order to discredit this generational sea change, education is accused of being dumbed down, college is demeaned, and this leaves what? The “poorly educated” that Trump said he loved…………………..because they are so easy to manipulate.
In my view, from the vantage point of 77 years, the younger generation, with the internet as their library and masters of digital technology, are the smartest, least indoctrinated generation yet, and the change theiy portend is what scares the anti-education fascists…..as it is a historical fact that it is the young who bring change and the old who resist it and accuse the young of being stupid, dumbed down, brainwashed, etc.
Einstein was 26 when he dicovered the general theory of relativity; Jefferson was 32 when he penned the Declaration of Independence…..it is always youth that brings fresh ideas and change….and that is why the old, whether in years or mind, try to cut them down.
I’m afraid you sound like one of those “brain washed” public school liberals ( Socialists). If you want to know how “dumbed down” today’s education system is, just go back 100 years and see what was being taught and at what ages. As was pointed out by the author of the article, most colleges now have to offer remedial classes for high school graduates due to the lack of real education. Instead of education, I dare say it is really “indoctrination” that our education system offers. And if high school fails to make the student a good socialist, don’t worry. Most of the colleges out there will make sure to finish the job.
Oh, Maggie. (Liberal = Socialist? Tut tut.) I can see why you’re prejudiced against higher learning, as “thinking” doesn’t really suit you, does it?
Higher DEBT learning.
Worse most folks are brain washed into thinking they have to have $100,000.00 in debt.
Such a scam.
They don’t even pretend to find a job for the grads.
THEN DON’T BORROW THE MONEY, IDIOTS!