- Joined
- Jun 21, 2003
It is not good to know that an entire generation is 50% deadbeats!
We are 100% deadbeats. Starting in 1980 ("supply side economics") the national debt as a proportion of GDP rose every year except briefly for a couple of years at the end of the Clinton adminitration. Now we owe $16,000,000,000,000. We will never pay it back.
jenaj said:Actually, this isn't true--either part.
Well, not every student goes to graduate or professional school. But here are the 2010 statistics for medical school graduates.
The median debt was $162,000 and 78% of all graduates owed more than $100,000.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images...reinhardt1/14economist-reinhardt1-blog480.jpg
As for repayment, about 9% of student debts are in default after two years. A lot more are somewhat behind, but trying to work something out. About 50% of student debtors have secured a deferment whereby they don't have to pay now, but will have to pay more later, if they can.
Student loans are unsecured. If you don't pay your car note, they will repossess your car. They can't repossess your education, so the student loan bill gets pushed to the bottom of the stack. Plus, if you don't have a job, you can't pay no matter how fiercely the government duns you.
Edited to add: I was wrong in saying that most financial aid is in the form of loans. I just looked oit uo and the percentage is 39%, the rest in grants, scholarships, and work-study. For the most part the schools that do not include loans in their student aid packages are the very expensive elite private universities. (Princeton was the first to adopt such a policy in 2001.) These schools are out of reach for the average American student.
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