The College Loan Scandal

How bad is the growing debt from college student loans?

"College tuition is free or nominal in most industrialized, and many Third World, countries. The United States' insistence that students assume huge debts to pay for their college education is unusual enough that the Chinese government included it in its 2001 report of American human rights violations."

This is from an article by Ted Rall. Some additional excerpts:

"The pre-bankrupting of America's best and brightest, the young men and women who attend private colleges and public universities, is one of our nation's enduring, quiet scandals." "Citibank's Student Loan Marketing Association, which holds outstanding student loans totaling $21 billion, recently announced that it turned a profit of $176 million last year, a 30 percent increase over 2001." "Eliminating the debt racket wouldn't be difficult. Calling off the invasion of Iraq, for instance, would save an estimated $200 billion---that's six years of fiscally emancipated youth right there. Eliminating last year's $1.5 trillion tax cut--money that would have gone to rich people who won't miss it--would pay off everyone's student loans for the next 50 years."