3 ms·

Very well said, and I think our system needs to do better for students. The issue is this however: > I wouldn’t have been able to afford college without a stud

Very well said, and I think our system needs to do better for students. The issue is this however: > I wouldn’t have been able to afford college without a student loan provider. This sentiment is echoed by millions of students in the US, myself included. The author's biggest issue is NOT her loan provider. The author's issue is that she made a stupid decision to go to a private university and pay it off with loans. For-profit universities are the bigger criminal in her story, but she either has not realized it or is unwilling to admit it because she had fun in college.

quadrangle 8y ago
But WHATEVER the biggest stupid decision, the focus was (and deserves to be) on the nature of debt-traps. Paying $18k on a $24k loan and the outstanding principle is still $24k… I don't care if the stupid decision was to borrow the money just to gamble it in a casino (or to fund a naive tech startup!) or whatever… even then, it's misguided to look at an article with that focus and say "casinos are the bigger criminals". No, debt runs our system and is the core driver of power and inequity. Debt is what enables the private-colleges and casinos etc. and that's what the article was about for good reason. Incidentally, she did NOT attend a for-profit college!! She attended a private college, i.e. a non-profit that happened not to be run by the state and get state funding. I mean, there's issues there too, but for-profit colleges are a whole other deal.