Student Debt

If you are a teacher in debt, there's good news and bad news. There are literally dozens of programs that could potentially help wipe out your student loans. But most of them have narrow requirements that may lock you out. Just ask Troy Dale, a high school counselor from Ellis, Kan. He and his wife have $23,000 in student loans that they've been paying down for nearly a decade. At their current rate, they'll still be paying off their student debts when their oldest child enrolls in college.

Re "Cal State grads facing an exit fee," May 14 Give an arm and a leg, and you still have to give up more. College tuition has been on the rise for the last 10 years, and just when a college student believes that the horror is over, many of the Cal State University campuses want students to pay an exit fee. What chutzpah. The average debt load for graduates who borrowed money to pay tuition hovers around $27,000, according to the Institute for College Access and Success' Project on Student Debt.

President Obama gave personal testimony on the experience of carrying burdensome college loans today, drawing a chorus of “amens” from a student audience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In a pitch for his latest legislative priority, Obama cited statistics about the rising cost of higher education but also got rather personal with the crowd of university students. “I didn't just read about this,” Obama said. “I didn't just get a policy briefing on this.

Looming student debt could hamper future economic growth as young people tamp down on spending and borrowing in the years to come. Compared with counterparts not saddled with student loans, these young workers are less likely to take out mortgages or car loans, according to a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It's a potentially worrying sign that these workers may be less optimistic about their future earning potential because of the millstone of student loans. Last year, 43% of 25-year-olds had incurred at least some student debt, up from 25% in 2003, the study said.

Looming student debt could hamper future economic growth as young people tamp down on spending and borrowing in the years to come. Compared with counterparts not saddled with student loans, these young workers are less likely to take out mortgages or car loans, according to a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It's a potentially worrying sign that these workers may be less optimistic about their future earning potential because of the millstone of student loans. Last year, 43% of 25-year-olds had incurred at least some student debt, up from 25% in 2003, the study said.

Student-loan debt is pushing an increasing number of young people and their parents toward bankruptcy, according to a survey released Tuesday. More than four-fifths of bankruptcy attorneys say they've seen a notable jump in the number of potential clients with student-loan debt in the last few years, with nearly half the lawyers reporting a significant increase in such cases, according to the survey by the National Assn. of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys. Nearly one-quarter of the attorneys surveyed say the number of potential student-loan clients have risen 50% to 100%, while another 39% of lawyers report spikes of 25% to 50%. Student debt is rising for obvious reasons: steadily spiraling college costs, financial-aid cutbacks at public universities and a stubbornly weak economy that's making it difficult for graduates to find jobs.

The share of American households affected by student debt has more than doubled in the last two decades, soaring from 9% in 1989 to a record of nearly one in five in 2010. The 19% of households weighed down by school loans is higher even than 2007, when 15% owed money for their education, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of government data . Young people are especially hard hit, as are poorer Americans. Among households headed by someone younger than age 35, four in 10 have student debt on the books.

VACAVILLE, Calif. - His jaw clenched beneath a blue surgeon's mask, Opanin Gyaami jerks his right arm and pulls out a prize: the decayed tooth of patient Larry Butler, also known as state prison inmate J22312. By the time he is done, Gyaami's smock and mask are spotted with the inmate's blood. He gently pats Butler on the shoulder and wishes him well. The 71-year-old dentist reports to the state prison in Vacaville day after day, long past retirement age. He wishes he could have hung up his drill and forceps years ago, but he's still paying off a student loan.

NEW YORK -- Like most medical students, Michael Gott has a lot of student debt. Unlike most medical students, his family possesses the baseball that Yankees slugger Lou Gehrig hit for a home run during the 1928 World Series. Not for long, though, because Gott's mother is selling the ball to help pay off her son's loans. By early Friday, bidding for the famous ball had reached more than $33,000, but Hunt Auctions of Exton, Penn., which is handling the sale, expects to fetch $100,000 to $200,000 for the ball, which flew into the bleachers on Oct. 5, 1928, in the second game of the series.

The student-loan market is not in a bubble and going into debt to pay for college is still worth it, according to a new report. But those are the rare bits of good news in the otherwise dispiriting report on students' escalating college debt. While concluding that diplomas are worth the money, the study by Wells Fargo economists found that the payoff may not come for years because graduates are squeezed by several factors. Tuition costs are rising faster than incomes. Graduates are having trouble finding solid jobs.

A bill before the California Legislature to address soaring student loan debt would require high school students to take a personal finance class.  ALSO: Photo gallery: Ted Rall cartoons Stumbling into another Korean war Schwarzenegger: California's silent disaster Follow Ted Rall on Twitter @TedRall

A California lawmaker and undergraduates concerned about record student-loan debt are rallying at the Capitol today for measures to protect those attending universities from going too deeply into hock. Assemblyman Bob Wieckowski (D-Fremont) is joining the students to seek support for a package of bills he has introduced. One bill, AB 233, would prevent wage garnishing on student loans not made or guaranteed by the government, while AB 534 would require universities to provide entrance and exit counseling to students regarding institutional or state-funded loans.

Dear Liz: What would you suggest that someone do with $20,000 if the someone is closer to 40 than 30, single, with $100,000 of student loan debt and a $250,000 mortgage? My salary is around $100,000 a year. I have an emergency fund equal to six months of expenses and I make an annual IRA contribution since my employer doesn't offer a 401(k) plan. Should I accelerate my student loan payments, since the interest isn't tax deductible for me because my income is too high? Or should I invest instead?

After graduating from Columbia University in the height of the recession and acquiring $120,000 in debt, including 12 student loans from seven servicers, Brendon McQueen was left with a film degree and a six-month grace period before his first loan repayment was due. Frustrated by the lack of options in tracking and managing his various loans, McQueen, like many other entrepreneurs, took matters into his own hands. “I tried to find a tool out there that offered a comprehensive solution, and I couldn't, so I said, 'Well, let's create one,'” McQueen said.  The solution: Tuition.io , a free one-stop-shop website that consolidates all your student loans -- public or private -- into one interface.

High school seniors are more worried about burdensome student-loan debt than about getting into the college of their dreams. That's the upshot from the annual “College Hopes and Worries” survey from the Princeton Review, a test-preparation and educational services company. Thirty-eight percent of students surveyed listed “level of debt incurred to pay for the degree” as their primary concern. That edged out the top answer the previous three years, which was getting into their preferred school but not being able to afford it or get enough financial aid. This year, 33% listed that as their biggest worry.

In a crossing of swords between academics and politicians, the University of California's top two faculty leaders on Friday strongly criticized legislation that would allow students bumped from overcrowded core courses at state schools to instead take online courses from other colleges or private companies. The bill, authored by state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), "raises grave concerns," Robert L. Powell and Bill Jacob, the chairman and vice chairman of the UC system's faculty Senate, wrote in a letter to colleagues.

College graduation is typically a time to tally accomplishments and to look ahead. But for many graduates, it is also a time to tally student loans and figure out how to repay them. About two-thirds of college graduates have some student loans to pay off, and their average debt is about $25,000 to $28,700, according to estimates by education experts and organizations. (About 10% of those with loans owe more than $50,000 or so.) Many college seniors say they had not thought much about their debt until they received summaries just before graduation.

Dear Liz: I am a junior in college, and I might have to take out a loan my senior year because of financial cuts in the state. Is it really a bad idea to take a loan for college? Answer: No, it's not. You don't want to overdose on education debt, but a student loan that helps you get the right degree could be the best investment you'll ever make. Someone with a college degree will earn on average $2.3 million over the course of a working lifetime, which is $1 million more than the lifetime earnings of someone with just a high school diploma, according to a study by the Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown University in Washington.

Families aren't saving enough for college, students are falling deeper into debt and nearly 13% of graduates owe more than $50,000, according to new research. The bottom line of the research, gleaned from a pair of new studies, is that college-debt woes continue to worsen despite all the attention focused on the ballooning debt of America's young people. An analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows that the number of students taking out college loans, and the amount they borrowed, both grew 70%, or roughly 7% a year, from 2004 and 2012.