The young and the jobless – Half of bachelor’s degree-holders under the age of 25 are unemployed or underemployed, in the US. Social Security short fall highlights deeper reality of economy.
The news for young Americans doesn’t seem to be getting any better. Earlier this week it was announced that Social Security will be running out of funds by 2033, three years earlier than expected. What this means if nothing is changed is that future retirees will receive only 75 percent of expected payouts. Not a [...]
The big swindle and a fog of debt – hiding the unemployed in the higher education bubble and three years of economic recovery equates to 11.5 million more Americans on food stamps.
A large part of our recovery is running on public relations trickery and smoke and mirrors debt machinery. Let me explain what I mean by this since on the surface we have been out of a recession since the summer of 2009. Government debt is soaring and public debt in certain sectors is flying off [...]
Educating students to debt – Student loan debt now second largest sector of household debt approaching $1 trillion. 14 percent of consumers have one account in collections.
College debt is fueling the out of control higher education bubble. The Federal Reserve tracks most household debt sectors very carefully including mortgage debt, auto debt, and credit card debt. You would think that they would follow student loan debt carefully. That was not the case until recently. More disturbing however is that student debt [...]
A costly lesson in student debt for young Americans – 34 percent of all student debt saddled to those under the age of 30. 47 percent of student loan borrowers appear to be in deferral or forbearance.
The student loan market has expanded like a financial virus in the last decade. Even during the financial meltdown where credit was being restricted across all sectors of the economy, student debt kept on growing at a feverish pitch. It would be one thing if the quality of education had increased or wages were going [...]
The compression of generations – 25 million adults live at home with parents because they’re unemployed or underemployed. The crushing cost of a college education today.
The thought of moving out on your own and making your individual way in the world is very much an American trait. Certainly movies and television shows almost always assume every American has moved out on their own once adulthood is reached. What this recession has taught us is never take anything for what is [...]
The law school bubble – At 50 law schools, 20% of the students are either unemployed, flunked out, or are unknown yet data does not show up in national rankings. Many more pass bar exam than actual job openings in legal field. Legal bubble is another tangent of the higher education bubble.
The higher education bubble has gotten a solid amount of press coverage in the last couple of years. Even with student loan debt lurching towards the $1 trillion mark the higher education bubble train keeps moving along. Part of this has to do with the odd financialization of higher education where things are so extreme [...]
The university of financialization – science and math graduates opt to go into the gambling fields of Wall Street banking instead of building productive jobs for society. Many non-tech majors choose lower paying fields while going into massive debt. Youth summer employment drops from 60 to 46 percent in last decade.
Going to college has always been a dream for many Americans. Parents have high hopes for their children going to a good school and coming out with a degree that has made them more well rounded as citizens. But this desire may not be coinciding with the marketing jargon that spews out from the industry. [...]
Is college worth the money and debt? The cost of college has increased by 11x since 1980 while inflation overall has increased by 3x. Diluting education with for-profits. and saddling millions with debt.
Is a college degree worth it? Since the debt bubble burst spectacularly in 2007 many more prospective students are questioning the worth of a college degree. For so many decades it was simply taken at face value that getting a college degree, any college degree would be worth it. Slowly this perception has morphed when [...]
The calm before the student loan bubble bursts – For-profits make up 9 percent of student enrollment yet produce 27 percent of all private loans. The inevitable pop of the student loan bubble.
The worth of a college degree has now come into question because of the massive student loan bubble. An education is vital yet the monopoly on knowledge has been turned upside down with readily accessible information through technological changes. What is odd however is during a time of knowledge access ubiquity you have a field [...]
A College Siren Call – Going to a for-profit college today is like purchasing a home with a subprime loan at the peak of the housing market – The massive student debt bubble expanded from $200 billion to over $960 billion from 2000 to 2011 with a big push from for-profits at a time when incomes contracted.
The college debt problem is boiling over and spilling hot water onto an already weak economy. This is no longer a petty niche issue when we are quickly reaching $1 trillion in outstanding student loan debt. What is more problematic is the acceleration in tuition over the last decade. Most of the combined data is [...]
