The Student Debt Slide

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/03/the-real-meaning-of-1-trillion-in-student-loans/254928/

by zpk • 14 years ago

3 1 14 years ago

Tangaroa• 14 years ago

The problem is not just debt, it is the lack of jobs to make money to pay off that debt. In the 1950s and earlier, a college degree of any kind would guarantee you a white-collar job. People with advanced educations, particularly in the soft subjects like English and History, were highly sought after and groomed to be managers and executives. Now you not only need a degree specific to the field you are attempting to enter, the degree only gets you into the entry level if you can even get the job because there are fewer jobs than there are degree-holders. If you do manage to get the job, wages have gone down relative to inflation and the cost of a university education has gone up, leading to more debt. College graduates today have fewer opportunities than high school graduates did a few decades ago and fewer opportunities than high school drop-outs had before the Depression, and are often making less money. Adjusted for inflation, my father made more as a bagger at a grocery store in the 1970s than I have ever made as a computer programmer, and that's when I can find work.

It's easy to say the problem is a lack of jobs, but it's harder to say what to do about it.

The Student Debt Slide

Related Stories