Student loans are a weight around the necks of millions of young adults and a potential disaster for the country. While corporations and wealthy individuals take advantage of record-low interest rates to increase their wealth, millions of recent (or not-so-recent) graduates are forced to bear rates of 6.8% or higher on government loans without any opportunity to refinance at a lower rate. We start our lives mired in debt, not from foolish spending but from trying to do the right thing.
When the economy stalled and the job market evaporated, our "best case" scenario became a compromise job with stagnant wages that we immediately hand over to Sallie Mae. Student loan debt now exceeds $1,000,000,000,000 in the United States. This is not the American Dream. This is an embarrassment.