The status… is spiraling. Colleges raise prices, lenders dole out aid, and colleges raise prices (again). For decades, tuition increases have outpaced household incomes, forcing families to rely on loans. Today, two-thirds of college students graduate with debt, which typically takes 17 years to pay off. The average loan balance at graduation has tripled since the ’90s to more than $30K — and nearly a tenth of borrowers owe more than $100K. To help relieve the burden, Biden pledged to make at least some college free, and promised at least $10K in loan forgiveness for each borrower. So far, his admin has forgiven $17B worth of federal student debt for 675K borrowers — a fraction of the $1.7T in student loans Americans owe.
SnackStat: 65% of Snackers said their college degree was “fairly valuable” or “very valuable” relative to their tuition investment. A quarter said it wasn’t “particularly valuable,” and 9% said it was “worthless.”
Snackers say…
The outlook… is mixed. This month, the Education Department said it’s forgiving loans of more than 110K government workers (think: teachers, firefighters). But the rest of debt holders aren’t so lucky, since Biden’s blanket loan-forgiveness promise isn’t panning out. Still, the pause on student loans has now been extended six times since March 2020, saving borrowers $1.5B a month in interest payments alone. Payments are set to resume in September, and if nothing changes, student debt could top $3T by 2035.