Last night, a college valedictorian, 4.0-achieving, popular, long-time friend of mine, delivered my Domino’s pizza last night.
“What the hell are you doing, Chip,” I asked. “Is this a joke?”
“No, dude. I can’t find a job. And this is my second job of the day. I wait tables at Ruth’s Chris, too. I have a family to support. And student loans to pay off.”
Hopefully that’ll change, though, as President Obama is expected to take unilateral action on student loans mid-week.
Maybe he’ll announce student loan forgiveness. You know, forgive some $60 billion in federal student loans, and have that money go straight into boosting consumer spending and ultimately the economy.
But that would make too much sense.
We’ll have to see what Obama says Wednesday before judging…
For now, though, nothing changes the fact that we were had by the biggest scam in U.S. history…
We believed the “experts” who encouraged us to borrow for college because it would pay off with great salaries in a robust workforce — much like we believed owning a home in 2007 was a great investment.
We ate up the notion that a college education was the key to getting a great job and living the “American dream”. But as millions of students are realizing, the rosy picture that was painted for diploma-holding members of society isn’t as rosy as it was made out to be…
Graduates are struggling to pay off hefty student loans as they stock shelves and wait tables.
Here we are absorbed by a trillion-dollar higher education debt bubble that’s bankrupting college graduates and burying the rest of us in bills we simply can’t pay.
The amount of student loans taken out last year crossed $100 billion. And outstanding loans will surpass $1 trillion, as Americans now own more on student loans than they do on credit cards.
Sounds a lot like the subprime bubble, doesn’t it?
Only difference is you can’t foreclose on a degree. You can’t get rid of your loan in bankruptcy court. All the while, your degree is worth only a fraction of its cost.
Yet Wall Street makes it seem as if all is well…
In the meantime, we’re looking for higher education short opportunities that’ll be issued (in Options Trading Pit) shortly.
