The young in America are being forced into cruel levels of debt, and this debt is already curbing their life prospects. Its economic effects are damaging to everyone. Yet with Washington frozen, the debt burdens on the young are likely to get worse.
For the young, a college education or post-high school professional training is the equivalent of what a high school degree was a generation ago. College is the necessary but not sufficient ticket to the middle class. For the nation, educating the next generation beyond high school is essential both for producing the citizens we need for a healthy democracy and for producing the work force we need for a healthy economy.
And yet college costs keep soaring, growing faster even than health-care costs. Government support for public universities and community colleges is down 25 percent since 2000. Students and their families must pay more and more of the cost. But family incomes have stagnated, failing to keep up with soaring costs of college, health care and housing.
The result is an explosion of student debt. It has nearly quadrupled since 2003, soaring to nearly a trillion dollars. Two-thirds of all students now graduate with debts averaging $27,000. The poorer the family, the higher the percentage of students with debt.
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