Today's young adults face a lifetime of diminished expectations, if not outright poverty. A majority of those attending college find themselves caught in the vise of a scissors crisis-low wage jobs and astonishing levels of student loan debt.
This financial strain is leading to rising incidences of depression, broken marriages, the postponement or abandonment of child-bearing, and even decisions to permanently leave the country.
The majority of the parents of college students, after decades of stagnating wages, had only one asset, home equity-a resource that has either vanished or become a punishing debt load under the impact of the housing meltdown. Now the younger generation has mortgaged its future in the form of student loan debt.
The problem is escalating. USA student loan debt exceeded credit card debt for the first time. Student debt is not just consumer debt. It is the most onerous kind of consumer debt because student borrowers do not receive standard consumer protections. Their loans are undischargable in bankruptcy, usurious penalties are legal, and there is no statute of limitations.
The Obama administration "reform" measure for students loans, which took effect on July, 1, 2011, will do nothing to address the bank's stranglehold over the younger generation. It's key provision is the elimination of the government subsidy to private companies for loan originations. This will have the effect of saving a projected $68 billion-not for the students, but for the federal government-by favoring direct loans over the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program. The role of private lenders in servicing, i.e. profiting from the loans, is left unchanged.
Student loans have become the most lucrative form of debt in the finance industry, because lenders have the most invasive collection rights and the federally mandated right to impose usurious fees and penalties. The industry is legally able to garnishee wages, tax returns and Social Security and disability payments without so much as a court order.
Our government reports that "our financial aid system is founded on the principle that any youth, regardless of family income, shouls have the financial opportunity" to pursue a bachelor's degree. They then provide a statistical analysis to show that this "longstanding principle" has lost any significant meaning.
I ask you this question My Friends: Where are the origins of the democratic idea that everyone should have the right to pursue a higher education? Got any answers? Thank You & God Bless All.
Rev.John.
