Yes, college graduates do make more money and they do have a lower unemployment rate. But most of them are also burdened by absolutely suffocating levels of student loan debt that will haunt them for decades.
So who is really better off?
If you can get someone to pay for your college education that is great. Because otherwise you are probably getting a rotten deal. The following are 29 shocking facts that prove that college education in America is a giant money making scam…
#2 In 1989, only 9 percent of all U.S. households were paying off student loan debt. Today, 19 percent of all U.S. households are.
#3 Young households are being hit particularly hard by student loan debt. In America today, 40 percent of all households that are led by someone under the age of 35 are paying off student loan debt. Back in 1989, that figure was below 20 percent.
#9 Today, 34.9 percent of all student loan borrowers under the age of 30 are at least 90 days behind on their student loan payments.
#15 At most U.S. colleges and universities, the quality of the education that you will receive is very poor. Just check out some numbers about the quality of college education in the United States from an article that appeared in USA Today….
-”After two years in college, 45% of students showed no significant gains in learning; after four years, 36% showed little change.”
-”Students also spent 50% less time studying compared with students a few decades ago”
-”35% of students report spending five or fewer hours per week studying alone.”
-”50% said they never took a class in a typical semester where they wrote more than 20 pages”
-”32% never took a course in a typical semester where they read more than 40 pages per week.”
#16 One survey found that U.S. college students spend 24% of their time sleeping, 51% of their time socializing and 7% of their time studying.
#17 Federal statistics reveal that only 36 percent of the full-time students who began college in 2001 received a bachelor’s degree within four years.
#21 If you think that you will be able to “beat the odds” and land the job of your dreams once you graduate from college, perhaps you should consider these numbers….
According to government data, compiled by the Treasury Department at the request of SmartMoney.com, the federal government is withholding money from a rapidly growing number of Social Security recipients who have fallen behind on federal student loans. From January through August 6, the government reduced the size of roughly 115,000 retirees’ Social Security checks on those grounds. That’s nearly double the pace of the department’s enforcement in 2011; it’s up from around 60,000 cases in all of 2007 and just 6 cases in 2000.
#24 One poll found that 70% of all college graduates wish that they had spent more time preparing for the “real world” while they were still in school.
#27 According to the ABA, only 56 percent of all law school graduates in 2012 were able to find a full-time job that requires a law degree.
When you are overwhelmed by nightmarish student loan debt that you can never get away from, it can literally take over your life. A recent Businessweek article shared some real life examples of this…
If student loans are good debt, how do you account for the reaction of Christina Mills, 30, of Minneapolis, when she found out her payment on college and law school loans would be $ 1,400 a month? “I just went into the car and started sobbing,” says Mills, who works for a nonprofit. “It was more than my paycheck at the time.” Medical student Thomas Smith, 25, of Hamilton, N.J., is $ 310,000 in debt and is struggling to make ends meet even before beginning to repay his loans. “I don’t even know what I eat,” he says. “I just go to the supermarket and buy the cheapest thing I can and buy as much of it as I can.” Then there’s Michael DiPietro, 25, of Brooklyn, who accumulated about $ 100,000 in debt while getting a bachelor’s degree in fashion, sculpture, and performance, and spent the next two years waiting tables. He has since landed a fundraising job in the arts but still has no idea how he will pay back all that money. “I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s an obsolete idea that a college education is like your golden ticket,” DiPietro says.
What about you?
Do you have student loan debt or do you know someone who does?