Government profits on student debt

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 16:00:00 +0000

Despite the havoc a generation of heavily indebted young people promises to wreak on the economy, commentators on the student debt crisis have for some time pointed out that the federal government has considerable interest in student borrowers remaining in the red. New figures further back this up. As the Huffington Post reported Tuesday, the Education Department is expected to earn $33.5 billion off student loans made during the 2013 fiscal year, according to budget documents. "The agency’s Direct Loan program delivered a $24 billion profit on loans made in 2012, and nearly $27.5 billion on 2011 loans. All told, over the last five fiscal years, the Education Department has generated $101.8 billion in profit from student borrowers, thanks to low borrowing costs for the government and fixed interest rates for students, budget documents show," reported HuffPo, noting, "Some student advocates have charged that the department is profiting off the backs of students."

Four ways banks have ruined higher education

Thu, 04 Oct 2012 16:41:00 +0000

  Like many others, I’m a passionate alumnus of my post-secondary institutions. I care deeply about preserving the rich culture of learning and community-building that fundamentally shaped my life. Yet it is becoming increasingly clear that drastic changes are being made to American college and university life -- changes that are fundamentally altering the ecology of higher education in this country and undercutting the very mission of the college experience as we know it.

A growing culture of reform has turned the campus quad away from preparing students for citizenship -- that combination of “intelligence plus character” the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr. once famously described. In its place, we now have campus environments that hold certain aspects of student life hostage to corporate interests, molding students into consumers at the same time the voices and opinions of the student body are increasingly silenced. As a result, higher education, often noted as the best insurance policy toward social mobility, is now no such thing (at least good insurance policies pay their claims).

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Government profits on student debt

Four ways banks have ruined higher education