wilwheaton:

micdotcom:

9 shocking facts about the student loan debt crisis

1. Public college tuition in the United States was 3.22 times more expensive compared to 1985 adjusted for inflation.

2. Meanwhile, the cost of college textbooks has seen a 1,041% increase since 1977 — three times the rate of inflation. 

3. The average American student debt upon graduation is about equal to the price of a Tesla 3

4. Roughly two-thirds of college students face student loan debts after graduating today. One expert said more than 25% of those students almost definitely won’t be able to afford the burden, according to a guest column in Time.

5. Student loan debt in America has surpassed credit card debt.

6. Over 40 million Americans faced student loan debt in 2014. “The population with student loans is actually greater than the entire population of Canada, Poland, North Korea, Australia and more than 200 other countries,” the Huffington Post noted at the time.

7. According to the Bay Citizen, the rate at which graduates defaulted on their loans nearly doubled from 2005 to 2010, from 4.6% to 8.8%.

8. For the 7 million Americans who defaulted on their student loans in 2014, they may have become ineligible for certain government jobs, according to the Huffington Post.

9.  The student loan debt crisis has prevented millennials from spending on many other life milestones.

It seems like colleges have, at least from an administrative perspective, become less about empowering and educating young people and more about putting them into debit for the rest of their lives.