My high school class and I moved like a school of fish: we graduates were capable of going off on our own, in whatever direction we chose, but something demanded we all swim as one, curving, cutting, sashaying together, wiggling our way to college. Except for a few miscreants, we all ended up in college.

In high school, if someone asked me what my “plans” were, I’d click into brainwashed robot mode: my body would become rigid, my pupils would dilate, and in a monotone, I’d recite, “I-will-go-to-the-best-college-I-can-get-into. No-matter-the-cost.” At some point, I’d convinced myself that going to college was what I really wanted to do. So I went to Alfred University, a pricey private college in southern New York. My first year at Alfred would cost me $18,450. Later, I would transfer to a cheaper state school, and my total price tag for higher education: $32,000.

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Warren was discussing the first bill she has introduced in the Senate, a plan released on Wednesday to address the crisis of outstanding student debt – which topped $1 trillion this year, with over 37 million Americans owing thousands of dollars in higher education costs that could take decades to pay back.

Student debt is now the second-highest form of debt in America – behind only mortgage debt – with the number of borrowers and the average balance increasing 70 percent since 2004. Research from the New York Federal Reserve Board indicates that this has begun to have an impact on the broader economy, with young people burdened by student debt more reluctant to take out auto or home loans. And without congressional action, this will get worse: on July 1, interest rates on federally subsidized Stafford student loans will double, from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent. This will effectively raise costs for 8 million student borrowers by $1,000.

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A phrase often heard is “moral hazard,” a concept borrowed by economists from the insurance industry. In its original usage, the term referred to the risk that insuring against an adverse event would invite the event. For example, someone who insured a house for more than its worth would have an incentive to burn it down. Nowadays, economists use the term to mean any unintended reward for bad behavior. Presumably, if we give debt relief to struggling homeowners or beleaguered nations, we invite more profligacy in the future. Hence, belts need to be tightened not just to improve fiscal balance but as punishment for past misdeeds and inducement for better self-discipline in the future.

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The extent of this myth is highlighted by a new report from the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, which indicates that nearly half of all employed college graduates have jobs that require less than a four-year college education. Despite such sobering statistics, the higher-education complex remains remarkably successful at ensuring that American taxpayers fund the acquisition of educational credentials that, in many cases, leave the people who obtain them worse off than they were before they enrolled.

Far from being “priceless,” as the promoters of ever-more spending on higher education would have Americans believe, both undergraduate and post-graduate education is turning out to be a catastrophic investment for many young and not-so-young adults.

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“New England School of Law, Summer Program, Galway, Ireland – teaching stipend: $15,000.”

Another part of the form reveals that the same school reimbursed Roberts for his airfare, meals and lodging for at least the two-week period during which the course -- on the history of the Supreme Court -- was held.  Roberts co-taught the course, which met seven times for two-hour periods, with a law professor, Richard Lazarus.

Roberts and Lazarus taught the same course on the scenic island of Malta last summer, and will do so again amid the charming old world architecture of Prague this July.  (Lazarus did not respond to my request for information regarding what he was being paid to teach the course or how responsibility for teaching and grading it was divided between himself and the chief justice).

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Obama, Romney argued, had been “very generous” to blacks, Hispanics and young voters. He cited as motivating factors to young voters the administration’s plan for partial forgiveness of college loan interest and the extension of health coverage for students on their parents’ insurance plans well into their 20s. Free contraception coverage under Obama’s healthcare plan, he added, gave an extra incentive to college-aged women to back the president.

Romney argued that the Obama’s health care plan’s promise of coverage “in perpetuity” was “highly motivational” to those voters making $25,000 to $35,000 who might not have been covered, as well as to African American and Hispanic voters. Pivoting to immigration, Romney said the Obama campaign’s efforts to paint him as “anti-immigrant” had been effective and that the administration’s promise to offer what he called “amnesty” to the children of illegal immigrants had helped turn out Hispanic voters in record numbers.

“The President’s campaign,” he said, “focused on giving targeted groups a big gift—so he made a big effort on small things. Those small things, by the way, add up to trillions of dollars.”

"They cannot stop being disrespectful and dismissive," Cynthia Tucker, a professor at the University of Georgia, slammed Romney's call on MSNBC. "They cannot speak of us as Americans, as voters."

Romney added that the donor group could be the basis of a future network that could wield some influence in the Republican Party. He said there was potential to hold annual meetings over the future direction of the GOP including the next presidential candidate, “Which, by the way...will not be me.”

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Servicers have misapplied payments, given borrowers bad advice, and reported incorrect information to credit bureaus, according to one of the reports. The findings were based on the agency's recent tracking of student loan complaints, focusing on the companies who handle private student loans.

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According to the government watchdog's annual report, "Student loan borrower stories of detours and dead ends with their servicers bear an uncanny resemblance to problematic practices uncovered in the mortgage servicing business."

The student lending practices directly mimic the risky lending underpinning the housing crisis: private lenders giving out loans without considering whether borrowers would repay, then bundling and reselling the loans to investors to avoid losing money when students default. The private student loan market grew from less than $7 billion in 2001 to more than $20 billion in 2008, according to the CFPB. Now, 30 percent of the 2,857 complaints related to private student loans filed in CFPB's database relate to inabilities in paying back loans.

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The financial aid award letters that colleges send to prospective students can be confusing: Many mix grants, scholarships and loans all under the heading of "Award," "Financial Assistance," or "Offered Financial Aid." Some schools also suggest loans in amounts that families can't afford.

Take Parent Plus loans, a federal program that allows families to take out as much as they need, after other aid is applied, to pay for their children's college costs. As we recently reported with the Chronicle of Higher Education, Plus loans are remarkably easy to get. With minimal underwriting and no assessment of whether parents can actually afford the loans, families can end up overburdened by debt.

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Almendral had been accepted to New York University in 1998, but even after adding up scholarships, grants, and the max she could take out in federal student loans, the private university — among nation's costliest — still seemed out of reach. One program filled the gap: Aurora's mother, Gemma Nemenzo, was eligible for a different federal loan meant to help parents finance their children's college costs. Despite her mother's modest income at the time — about $25,000 a year as a freelance writer, she estimates — the government quickly approved her for the loan. There was a simple credit check, but no check of income or whether Nemenzo, a single mom, could afford to repay the loans.

Nemenzo took out $17,000 in federal parent loans for the first two years her daughter attended NYU. But the burden soon became too much. With financial strains mounting, Almendral — who had promised to repay the loans herself —withdrew after her sophomore year. She later finished her degree at the far less expensive Hunter College, part of the public City University of New York, and went on to earn a Fulbright scholarship.

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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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Then California bled that system dry. Over three decades, voters starved their state -- and so their colleges and universities -- of cash. Politicians siphoned away what money remained and spent it more on imprisoning people, not educating them. College administrators grappled with shriveling state support by jacking up tuitions, tacking on new fees, and so asking more each year from increasingly pinched students and families. Today, many of those students stagger under a heap of debt as they linger on waiting lists to get into the over-subscribed classes they need to graduate.

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The policy clash boils down to a single notion: vouchers. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are proposing a voucher-based Medicare system—one in which seniors are given vouchers to trade for insurance plans on a national exchange or market. The value of these vouchers is capped at a specific value, with the aim of curbing rising health care costs. And in fact, it is completely true that the Romney-Ryan voucher system will reduce Medicare costs, as promised. But it will do so by pushing those expenses onto Medicare enrollees, by forcing them to pay more out of pocket to cover their medical expenses as health care costs rise. What the GOP is proposing, in other words, is not exactly cost-cutting, but rather cost-shifting from government to seniors. If the yearly national allowance of vouchers has expired and your heart begins to fail, well, at least take solace in the fact that Mr. Ryan’s plan lowers Medicare costs by 20 percent.

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The government records and documents student loans as a form of aid. Here's a list of the "amount of financial aid awarded to full-time, full-year undergraduates, by type and source of aid," and loans are listed right next to grants. When pundits say that "student aid" has exploded over the past decade and argue that aid is driving increases in tuition, it disguises that the "aid" which has exploded is a signficant amount of debt for young people.

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"Not that it's not a good idea to give students loans," Bartlett said. "It certainly is a good idea to give them loans. But if you can ignore the Constitution to do something good today, tomorrow you will be ignoring the Constitution to do something bad. You could. There are more people in our, in America today of German ancestry than any other [inaudible]. The Holocaust that occurred in Germany -- how in the heck could that happen? And when you start down the wrong road, it can be a very slippery slope."

When asked about his comments, Bartlett's office didn't back down: “Congressman Bartlett has always been a strong believer in limited government,” Bartlett campaign spokesman Ted Dacey said. “He is also a strong supporter of making college accessible to all Americans."

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Twenty-five years after taking out my student loan, I can say there's a decent chance I'll die owing enough money to buy a small island. My story may or may not be typical, but it proves how easily someone can find themselves in my position with a little lack of planning, a few unforeseen events and an unforgiving economy.

After graduating from college, I had no idea what line of work to pursue. I was unhappy and insecure, and I decided that practicing law was a more reliable alternative to getting a doctorate in English or trying to make it as a writer. My parents thought it was a waste of my actual talents, and my friends felt it was a terrible idea based on my temperament. Undaunted, I took the LSAT and got into several schools before finally picking the most expensive in the most expensive city. There were loans available, and I borrowed the maximum amount available -- just enough to cover tuition, rent, food, books and a subway pass.

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