"These figures present a scathing indictment of the social order that prevails in America, the world’s wealthiest country, whose government proclaims itself to be the globe’s leading democracy. They are just one manifestation of the human toll taken by the vast and all-pervasive inequality and mass poverty."Number of Americans defaulting on student loans reaches 4.2 million
By Philip Andrea and Genevieve Leigh
10 April 2017
A new analysis released this week by the Consumer Federation of America found that the number of Americans in default on their student loans jumped by nearly a fifth in 2016. Rising 17 percent from 3.6 million in 2015, there are now at least 4.2 million Federal Direct Loan borrowers in default. A borrower is put in default when no payment is made in more than 270 days.
In addition to more borrowers defaulting on their loans, both the number of borrowers and the average amount borrowed continues to increase rapidly. The new analysis shows that the total amount of student debt owed adds up to a staggering $1.3 trillion, triple what it was a decade ago.
The report also emphasized the relationship between student debt and homeownership. Not surprisingly, it was found that people with student debt have a significantly lower chance of owning a home when compared to graduates without debt, namely those aged 30 to 36.
Attaining a college degree has been shown to increase the probability of owning a home, but this statistic still keels to the prospect of debt damaging the borrower’s credit score. According to a recent study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, graduates with a bachelor’s or higher degree without debt are about 53 percent more likely to own a home, as compared to those with debt, who are about 7 percent less likely. Those with an associate’s degree and no debt hover around 41 percent, while associate’s graduates with debt are near 32 percent.
The report also showed that among high-balance borrowers, those owing $75,000 or more, only one-quarter to one-third of their debt has been paid down, a sign that repayment has slowed.
Per the New York Fed study, new graduates who take out student loans are leaving school owing an average of $34,000, a 70 percent increase from just 10 years ago.
These figures correlate with the rising cost of tuition, up $2,790 on average at public four-year colleges over the last decade, and $7,100 on average at private nonprofit four-year institutions. Other factors, such as the dwindling job market and growing cost of living, are putting pressures on students that make it more difficult to pursue a decent life while attending and after leaving college.
In a press briefing last week called to discuss the new figures, Federal Reserve Bank of New York president William Dudley attempted to draw something positive from the analysis, an incredible feat considering the findings.
Dudley pointed out that while the overall number of borrowers in default has increased significantly, the number of people in default for the first time, particularly among graduate students, has fallen. He noted that this “reflects something good,” adding that graduate students are utilizing government programs intended to ease the repayment process.
There is nothing that even remotely resembles something “good” reflected in the report. The only reflection is that of thousands of struggling students and graduates drowning in debt. Defaulting, even once, on a federal student loan often means financial disaster for the borrower. As revealed by the recent analysis, those borrowers who are 30 days late even one time, are nearly 50 percent less likely to own a home than those who are never late.
Unlike other types of debt, most student loans cannot be disburdened in bankruptcy. Without this option, the repercussions for those who go into default can include wage garnishment, damaged credit scores, added costs in late fees, interest and, in some cases, legal fees. To make matters worse, the number of people defaulting for the second time or more has risen significantly.
Moreover, there are serious problems with the programs that are ostensibly meant to help borrowers pay back their loans. It has recently been announced that the more than 550,000 people who signed up for a federal program that promises to repay their remaining student loans after they work 10 years in a public service job may not be given their promised relief.
In a legal filing submitted at the end of March, the Education Department suggested that borrowers could not rely on the program’s administrator to say accurately whether they qualify for debt forgiveness. They claim that the thousands of approval letters sent by the administrator, FedLoan Servicing, are not binding and can be rescinded at any time.
The new statistics released by the Consumer Federation of America for 2016 become all the more appalling when one considers the accumulation of wealth by a small handful. Forbes Magazine’s annual survey recently reported that the combined wealth of those on Forbes’ billionaires list rose 18 percent in 2016, to $7.67 trillion, enough to foot the total student debt bill nearly six times over.
Despite former President Obama’s claim of “economic recovery” since the 2008 recession, and the stock market boom of the Trump presidency, the reality is quite the opposite for the working class.
An 18-year-old working class youth, upon high school graduation, is left with two options: attend university and take on massive amounts of student debt, accepting the risk of living through four years of food insecurity and even homelessness, or, enter the job market where the unemployment rate among youth is at 10.4 percent and the majority of the jobs available pay no more than minimum wage. Alternatively, some choose to enter the military, an even deadlier risk, as a way of paying for an education.
The psychological effect that accompanies living with the burden of thousands of dollars of debt is incalculable. Even the fear of being unable to earn a liveable income after graduation compels students to discard any aspirations of a career in fields such as art, music, film and the humanities. All critical questions of social life become subordinate to the looming cloud of student debt.
Over a quarter of the generation known as “millennials” have reported delaying starting a family due to the economic constraints caused by student debt. For the first time in the last 130 years, Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 are more likely to be living with their parents than with a spouse or partner.
These conditions, created by the failure of the
capitalist system, are crippling the
development of an entire generation. The
rising student debt crisis is just one of many
indices that reveal the dire state of this
generation.
Majority of
students cannot afford 95 percent of US colleges
By Kathleen Martin
A recent report shows that US colleges are becoming
Americans,”
released in March 2017 by the Institute
for Higher Education Policy (IHEP),
shows 95
percent of American colleges are too expensive for
the majority of
low-income students.
The study draws shocking results. “[A]lthough the student from the
highest income quintile in these analyses could afford to attend 90 percent of
colleges in the sample,” the report states, “the low- and moderate-income
students with fewer financial resources could only afford 1 to 5 percent of
colleges.”
Working class students and youth are faced with bleak options for
future employment. Most jobs that pay “decent” wages require a college degree
or certificate. But over the last several decades, there has been a significant
shift in financial policy for higher education: on the one hand, the cost of
attaining a degree has skyrocketed and, on the other, state and federal funding
for college costs has been rolled back significantly.
These tuition hikes and funding cutbacks have effectively
educationally crippled millions of working class students and youth in the US.
Student loan debt has again reached an all-time high, weighing in at $1.4
trillion nationally. The average 2016 college graduate has a massive $37,172 in
student loan debt, according to March 2017 statistics from studentloanhero.com.
The IHEP report cites low funding for the Pell Grant as a major
factor in college unaffordability. In some states, funding for the Pell Grant
has gone up in recent years, but not in proportion to the continually rising
cost of tuition as well as other expenses, such as books and fees—not to
mention vital day-to-day living expenses like rent, groceries and health care.
“On average,” the report states, “the low-income student needs to
finance an amount equivalent to more than 100 percent of their family’s annual
income to attend one year at a four-year college, compared with high-income
students, who must finance only 15 percent on average.”
The cost of attending college is calculated by the Higher
Education Act from data reported by colleges to the Integrated Postsecondary
Education Data System. It adds the cost of tuition, fees, room, board, books,
supplies, transportation and “other costs,” and then subtracts grant aid from
that total.
The report categorizes students by the Lumina Foundation’s
“Affordability Benchmark,” standards which are already inconceivable for the
average working class family. It is based on the “Rule of 10,” meaning the
student “should be able to work 10 hours per week (500 hours per year) while
attending college full-time.”
According to this benchmark, “To be considered affordable, the
total 10-year savings plus part-time earnings should cover the entire cost of a
four-year degree.” The report notes that students and/or families with an
income less than 200 percent of the Federal Poverty Guideline are not expected
to save for college because they have no discretionary income.
However, parents of prospective college students whose incomes are
above the federal poverty line are expected to save 10 percent of their
discretionary income every year over the course of a decade to contribute to
their child’s college tuition.
Take for example the imaginary “Mia,” from a family of four,
created for the purpose of the study but based on averaged national statistics.
Her parents have a combined income of $100,000, so IHEP calculates that they
should be able to contribute $54,000 to her bachelor’s degree. If Mia works 10
hours a week at a minimum-wage job during college, she should theoretically be
able to contribute $14,500 to her degree. All in all, she should be able to
afford the cost of her degree at $65,900 over the course of four years, or
$16,475 a year. Anything beyond that is considered out of Mia’s financial
reach.
According to the College Board, the average cost of tuition and
fees for the 2016-2017 school year was $33,480 at private colleges, $9,650 for
in-state residents at public colleges and $24,930 for out-of-state residents at
public universities. Theoretically speaking, Mia can afford only the public
college within her state, and that price tag does not include rent, food,
transportation and other living expenses.
While useful in shedding light on the affordability crisis, the
benchmark does not take into account any situation that would jeopardize that
family’s financial situation even remotely. Do Mia’s parents have ample savings
in pensions and retirement funds? Are Mia’s parents financially responsible for
their own aging parents? Is Mia capable of working a part-time job during
college? Answering “yes” to any of these questions, among countless others
posed to the majority of working class Americans—even the “better off”
ones—throws a wrench in the benchmark calculations.
It is also crucial to note that according to the US Census Bureau,
in 2016 the median household income was $56,516. Mia is considered well off
financially compared to many of her peers.
The study notes that for independent students, meaning students
who cannot rely on family to contribute to their education, loans are a major
factor in deciding where to attend college. The lowest-income student example
cited in the study can afford to attend 3 percent of colleges without loans. With
Subsidized Stafford loans, the number of schools considered affordable is
raised from 3 to 9 percent, which still leaves the vast majority of
higher-education institutions out of reach.
Most students in the independent and low-income dependent groups are
forced to work full-time out of necessity to avoid being buried in student loan
debt. Poor performance at any level of education is directly correlated to
problems faced by the working class. A full-time student who needs only to
worry about grades and studying is much more likely to achieve academic success
than a full-time student who is also a full-time worker.
While the study itself draws important conclusions, and is useful
in showing the extreme disparities that exist between the classes, it goes on
to advocate for governmental changes—calling for policymakers to implement
certain measures which would supposedly even the playing field for students
from a wider variety of economic backgrounds.
For example, it demands that “[C]olleges with wealth at their
disposal—either in the form of large endowments or company profits—should keep
prices low for needy students.” Calling on policymakers to intervene in the
finances of wealthy and prestigious institutions or profit-making private
universities is absurd under the current economic and political system.
The results drawn from the study reflect
precisely what is
happening at large, in not
only American society, but globally as well:
the gap
between the rich and the poor, and
what is accessible to each, is growing
larger,
and has an impact on every aspect of social
life.
AMERICA’S
YOUTH STARVE
What
is left for Legals is only the tax bills for La Raza's looting!
The
new reports show that in addition to “traditional” coping strategies of
skipping meals and eating cheap food, these teens and pre-teens are increasingly
forced into shoplifting, stealing, selling drugs, joining a gang, or selling their bodies for money
in a struggle to eat properly.
THE DEMOCRAT PARTY: MUCK AMERICA’S YOUTH…. WE’VE GOT OUR ILLEGALS
CLIMBING THE BORDERS, JOBS AND VOTING BOOTHS!
OBAMA-CLINTONOMICS
pounds America’s youth as they build a border to border Mexican welfare state
on our backs!
AMERICA’S YOUTH STARVE
…… ILLEGALS SUCK IN BILLIONS IN WELFARE… they also get our
jobs!
The new reports show that in addition to
“traditional” coping strategies of skipping meals and eating cheap food, these
teens and pre-teens are increasingly forced into shoplifting, stealing, selling
drugs, joining a gang, or selling their bodies for money in a struggle to eat
properly.
AMERICA STUDENTS STARVE:
Report on the impact of
OBAMA-CLINTONOMICS-TRUMPERNOMICS
THE GIG JOB – In America, No Legal Need Apply
"Possibly most affected by this shift in the economy is the
Millennial generation, those aged 18-30. The report notes that more than half
of those under age 25 participate in independent work, not just in the
United States but throughout the European Union as well."
LA RAZA MEXICO’S
TRILLION DOLLAR LOOTING OF AMERICA
The staggering
cost of all that “cheap” Mexican labor:
MEXICANS SUCK IN
MORE WELFARE THAN LEGALS!
“The lifetime costs of Social Security and Medicare
benefits of illegal immigrant beneficiaries of President Obama’s executive amnesty
would be well over a trillion dollars, according to Heritage Foundation expert Robert
Rector’s prepared testimony for a House panel obtained in advance by Breitbart
News.”
THE
STAGGERING COST OF AMNESTY: non-enforcement is another
form of AMNESTY!
Legals
to pay trillions for open borders and Mexico’s looting
Between one-quarter and one-third of the 1.5 million
new arrivals in 2014 were illegal aliens, meaning that a conservative estimate
is that 1,000 illegal aliens a day are moving to the United States.
OBAMA’S SOROS-FUNDED GLOBALIST PARTY
AFTER THE DEATH OF
THE DEMOCRAT PARTY, ROTTED AWAY WITH CORRUPTION, BARACK OBAMA AND GEORGE SOROS
HAVE FOUND A NEW GLOBALIST-NAFTA PARTY TO SERVE THE SUPER RICH!
AFTER DESTROYING
THE DEMOCRAT PARTY and the AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS, OBAMA NOW VOWS TO BUILD A
PRO-MUSLIM DICTATORSHIP FUNDED BY GEORGE SOROS AND OBAMA’S CRONY BANKSTERS.
Barack Obama and his henchmen would not have been
emboldened in their ostensible machinations to undermine an election and then a
presidency if it were not for the fecklessness of the Republican Party and the
blind eye as well as the tacit support of the mainstream media.
In what’s
shaping up to be a highly unusual post-presidency, Obama isn’t just staying
behind in Washington. He’s working behind the scenes to set up what will
effectively be a shadow government to not only protect his threatened legacy,
but to sabotage the incoming administration and its popular “America First”
agenda.
THE OBAMA CONSPIRACY TO DESTROY AMERICA: DRUGS,
POVERTY and OPEN BORDERS
SOARING POVERTY AND DRUG ADDICTION UNDER OBAMA
"These figures present a scathing indictment
of the social order that prevails in America, the world’s wealthiest country,
whose government proclaims itself to be the globe’s leading democracy. They are
just one manifestation of the human toll taken by the vast and all-pervasive
inequality and mass poverty
THE OBAMA WAR ON AMERICA: His OFA Party is Dedicated
to Destroying
American and Building the Obama Muslim-style
dictatorship funded by crony
banksters.
Daniel
Greenfield, the award-winning Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center,
believes (OBAMA'S POLITICAL PARTY) “OFA will be far more dangerous in the wild
than the Clinton Foundation ever was.”
"Obama is no
fool and he understands -- having encouraged Black Lives Matter and the war on
police and law enforcement, having facilitated ballooning welfare rolls and
doubling student debt to $1.35 trillion, having presided over a flood of
immigrants illegally crossing the southern border, and having pushed
unprecedented deficit spending that added nearly a trillion dollars annually to
the federal debt and doubling that debt in eight years to $20 trillion -- that
the U.S. is nearer collapse than at any previous time. And every Marxist knows
that socialist transformation first requires collapse of the old order."
Is it too late for America?
Obama's
Legacy of the 'Hispanicazation' of
America
January 10, 2011
By: James Walsh
Casting a shadow on economic recovery efforts in the United States
is the cost of illegal immigration that consumes U.S. taxpayer dollars for
education, healthcare, social welfare benefits, and criminal justice. Illegal
aliens (or more politically correct, “undocumented immigrants”) with ties to
Mexican drug cartels are contributing to death and destruction on U.S. lands
along the southern border.
While the declining job market in the United States may be
discouraging some would-be border crossers, a flow of illegal aliens continues
unabated, with many entering the United States as drug-smuggling “mules.”
70% OF ILLEGALS GET WELFARE!
“According to the Centers for
Immigration Studies, April '11, at least 70% of Mexican illegal alien families
receive some type of welfare in the US!!! cis.org”
CIS
THE LAST days BEFORE THE REVOLUTION
STAGGERING ADDICTION and POVERTY
IN AMERICA