America is awash in debt. The consumer-driven economy is driving consumers into bankruptcy, the average household owes more than $10,000 in high-interest credit card debt spanning six or more credit cards, and the Goverment recently announced that our national savings rate was negative. (Not that the Government has room to talk; the Government is exceeding its income so much that the new exciting goal in Washington is just to cut the deficit in half by the end of the decade.)
Amidst this sea of splurge-spending that has seen consumers trade their home equity in to pay off credit cards only to max-out those same cards in the same calendar year, there is a curious reluctance on the part of the American populace to borrow money for higher education through the Stafford loan program. In fact, the same students who eagerly sign up for card after card just to get free tacky t-shirts they’ll never wear complain about the amount of student loan debt that they’ll have when they graduate.
If only all of America’s financial troubles were linked to student loans! These loans aren’t as bad as parents and students seem to believe. In...