News & Comment

I grew up in a blue-collar middle-class family in Middletown, Ohio, once named an All-American City. My dad worked at the local steel factory as a machinist, and my mom was an office manager at the local orthodontist’s office. I had a good life growing up—we took vacations every year to Myrtle Beach, four kids and six suitcases crammed into a Chevy. We always had healthcare and didn’t really lack for anything. My parents were able to pay for me to go to a state college out of their own pocket. I worked only during winter and summer breaks, and that was basically so I would have money to spend on college life, not on college itself. I focused on my studies, graduated in four years and left college with zero debt. Today, my story isn’t possible for a new generation. read more »

As credit card and housing debt become unbearable, there’s a point at which they get written down. That point is too high, but because of various laws regarding debt collection that shift the strategy and potential end results between the actors, there’s a logic to it. As far as I can tell, there’s simply no equivalent chart, or even logic, for student loans. Because of legal choices we’ve made in how to set up this relationship, it stays forever, is virtually impossible to discharge under hardship, churns fees when it goes bad, and creditors can get to anything, including Social Security, to get it repaid. Meanwhile, we have a Great Depression-like event that is throwing college graduates into a labor market that is far too weak. How is this not setting a generation up for complete disaster? read more »

When it comes to the student-loan reform measure that was approved in 2010, Paul Ryan is either deeply ignorant or he’s shamelessly lying. The reform measure didn’t “confiscate the private student loan industry”; that’s idiotic. Under Ryan’s preferred model, before reform, the student-loan industry received taxpayer subsidies to provide a service the government could perform for less. Democrats removed the middleman, streamlined the process, saved taxpayers a lot money, and helped more young people get college degrees. No one “confiscated” anything — the “private student loan industry” still exists — and the officials simply stopped giving money to banks for no reason as part of the federal student-loan system. If Ryan wants to return to an inefficient and needlessly expensive model, he’s welcome to make the case, but he shouldn’t lie about the existing policy. read more »

USA Today says that at some point this year, student loan debt will exceed $1 trillion, surpassing even credit card debt. Felix Salmon says the number is closer to $550 billion. Either way total student loan debt is rising as other debts have tailed off. Delinquency has increased, too, since the height of the financial crisis. It’s a huge mess. Some people have noticed that “student loan debt” comes up a lot among the Wall Street Occupiers and the members of the 99 percent movement. Often, older people, who attended school when tuition was reasonable, tend to think this is all the entitled whining of spoiled kids. They don’t understand that these kids accepted a home mortgage worth of debt before they ever even had a regular income, based on phony promises, and that the debt is inescapable, regardless of life circumstances or ability to pay. read more »

Occupy Wall Street is shining a useful spotlight on one of America’s central challenges, the inequality that leaves the richest 1 percent of Americans with a greater net worth than the entire bottom 90 percent. Most of the proposed remedies involve changes in taxes and regulations, and they would help. But the single step that would do the most to reduce inequality has nothing to do with finance at all. It’s an expansion of early childhood education. Huh? That will seem naïve and bizarre to many who chafe at inequities and who think the first step is to throw a few bankers into prison. But although part of the problem is billionaires being taxed at lower rates than those with more modest incomes, a bigger source of structural inequity is that many young people never get the skills to compete. They’re just left behind. read more »

Wall Street’s excesses blew up the economy.  Now the question is who pays to clean up the mess. read more »

Even after writing the headline to this post I have to wonder, "Is this a point that even has to be made?" read more »

No one knows why a group of about 10 teenagers surrounded Trell Thomas at a bus stop in downtown Washington earlier this month and beat him so badly that his jaw was broken, causing permanent damage. read more »

The House is poised to vote on legislation that would increase federal support for charter schools and would encourage states to authorize new charter schools. The "Empowering Parents through Quality Charter Schools Act" represents the latest triumph of ideology over reality in public education. read more »

As our kids march off to school or college in the coming days, a nagging question presents itself: Why are they so goddamn calm? Or are they numb? I realize they occupy their own little world, but here's a reality check: Confronting them is a stalled economy and a stalemated government. That translates into big college loans and no job prospects. Even more confounding, the young people throughout the rest of the world are far from calm — in fact, they're in a state of revolt. There are riots in London, Israel and Spain and violent demands for change across the long-languid Arab world. read more »