The party that figures out how to convince young people that they have a solution to this will win elections until either the problem is solved or it becomes apparent that their solution did not work.
The Institute for College Access & Success, an independent nonprofit organization based in Oakland, California recently released its eighth annual report on average student loan debt in the US, and its findings are dire. College graduates who borrowed for bachelor’s degrees granted in 2012 have an average student loan debt of $29,400, the highest average student loan debt ever on record.
Overall, 70 percent of college seniors graduated in 2012 with debt.
“The graduates of 2012 left school and entered repayment at a time of high unemployment,” said Debbie Cochrane, research director at the institute. “In many ways, these graduates were hit from both sides.”
“They went to college during a recession when their family’s ability to pay for college was likely reduced. Now they are graduating from college and may be experiencing substantial challenges getting a job to repay the loans.”
We have created a generation of well-educated sharecroppers, and they are going to be extremely angry. How that populist anger is channelled will decide whether we move as a country to the left or we start looking for scapegoats and tear each other apart.
