Sobering News

College Students' Financial Burden Is About to Get Worse

Margo Alpert is on the 30-year plan. Every month, $500 to $600 is automatically deducted from her salary to pay off college loans. By the time the 29-year-old Chicago public interest lawyer is in her mid-50s and thinking seriously about retirement, she will finally be free of college debt.

"It's going to be part of my life forever," Alpert said. "I don't think about it at all because it's just a fact of life."

Alpert's experience with her version of debtors' prison is not unusual in the realm of recent college graduates whose unpaid loan and expense obligations have soared in the last several years. Some have been left with debts that are double, or even more than triple, their annual salaries.

Because of higher tuition, steady or declining grants and state aid, and a greater dependency on loans, the average student's debt has increased by more than 50% over the last decade, after accounting for inflation, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

And as Congress moves to cut the budget deficit, the cost pressure on college students and those preparing to enter university is about to worsen.

Read complete article in LA Times.