student loans. I’ve almost paid mine off after 15 painful years. but today, people are graduating med school, law school with 200-250k plus in loans. it’s tough to make a go of it for some. it could turn out to be a bad bet. what if tuition kept going up as everything deflated? What if people got out of school routinely with a million in debt? at some point, wouldn’t it just be rational to say fine, I’ll get the degree, society tells me i need it to get ahead, i know i’ll never be able to pay off the loan,I’ll default, then you can garnish my salary. there’s only so much they can take, 25% or so. if your monthly payment is $5,000 a month and you take home $5,000 a month, it’s not possible you can pay your loan. yeah, you took the debt on willingly, but doesn’t society have some obligation to have tuition vaguely match up with the economic value of the degree? or at least be forbidden from putting out any propaganda that the degree is worth something and is not a liability? should there be a disclaimer or warning on your tuition statement, something like “WARNING: this debt you are incurring is toxic. it is unlikely you will ever be able to pay it back based on current salaries.” Maybe this is where it’s all gone to. the debts become crazy, speculative, bear no relation to reality…and that makes people say what the heck, why not…
