This article and so many others like it only further perpetuate the problems inherent with the higher education system. US News like so many other entities have sold out to the higher ed industrial complex.
Explain to me how taking out student loans improves credit? If a student debt borrower wants to apply for a car loan or mortgage, they look at the student loan debt and it works against the borrower. Credit could be established just as easily by taking out a cable bill or cell phone bill in the student's name.
There are other ways to establish financial literacy aside from incurring non-dischargeable student loan debt. How about taking a class at the local JC? Financial literacy should be taught in grammar and high schools but it is not.
Hopkins, this article is so trite that the message is meaningless. Student loan debt is not "good debt" but rather some of the most toxic debt a person can acquire. If you don't believe me, google student loans. The info is out there.
This article, and others like it, serve as a perverted form of advertising designed to entice naive borrowers into taking out student loans. College is not a god deal (across all industries) if a person has to borrow. ALL industries are flooded. Even the once marketable majors are flooded with graduates.
This misinformation presented here only serves to make the problem worse. It reminds me of the housing market bust where, even when the bubble had popped, NAR and all the other people connected to the industry were still telling people to buy.
Steveof AZ4:02PM August 31, 2011
Articles such as this commonly neglect to state that the choice of Major (program of study) is a factor in prudent borrowing. Consider student A, studying a declared Major which is known to have a current & historical market for those services upon graduation. Consider student B, studying various classes that sound interesting, and leaning toward a "tournament" major (i.e. many more degrees granted than the post-college market supports). Student A has a valid reason to borrow considerably more than student B.
bill s.of IL3:35PM August 31, 2011
joe st. clair of CA wrote:
"In addition, don't count on our college youth to change the world: student loans have turned them into frightened milktoasts."
Frightened milquetoasts saddled with the historically unprecedented debt of their parents' generation, facing a global economy that has just had the plugged pulled on it by the recklessness of their parents' generation, and only armed with ludicrously overpriced degrees they were deceived into chasing by their parents' generation. I'd be amazed if ANYONE could save the world from paying for the sins of the Worst Generation.
And what this article boils down to is "hey, at least having our children sign $25,000+ loan contracts, that MAY pay for themselves over a lifetime, builds character... so there's that." Well thanks, but maybe tough, character-building jobs would have done the trick, instead of unemployment, serfdom, and (in the only act of creation by the Worst Generation) an automated society increasingly dominated by barriers to genuine human interaction.
Too bad the people we're supposed to respect and emulate not only ignored their problems and obligations, but compounded them and now believe they are entitled to have their offspring resolve them. The very characteristics they criticize the millenials for, they have long since perfected. I suppose we have no choice but to embarrass them in the history books by actually spinning gold out of the mountain of crap they built to mark their legacy.
Andresof FL3:30PM August 31, 2011
Dating someone saddled with student loan debts is definitely not an attractive proposition and can only add to the stresses of marriage right from the onset. Here's one more cause for divorce in its first five years.
The lousy economic situation makes student loans that much riskier to assume. In addition, don't count on our college youth to change the world: student loans have turned them into frightened milktoasts.
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Steve of AZ 4:02PM August 31, 2011
bill s. of IL 3:35PM August 31, 2011
Andres of FL 3:30PM August 31, 2011
joe st. clair of CA 2:07PM August 31, 2011