“I take out student loans to afford college so I can intern for free so I can take out more loans for my PhD so that I may one day pay for my kid to go to college.”

The economics of education in this country are so insane that it seems no news can shock us anymore. We all know higher education is too damn expensive, student loans are through the roof and what's the point even since there are no jobs? It's all beyond comprehension.

But somehow this news made me choke on my coffee and pierced my indifference. A recent study of debt in the system of higher education reveals that debt of both students and institutions has gone up by over 1000% over the last 15 years, and is currently at about $45 billion per year. Wall Street is making serious bank on the interest of these loans, and as much as 10% of everything spent on higher education has been going straight to Wall Street in the past few years.

The video below summarizes it pretty well. When the economy collapsed in 2008, funding for higher education collapsed too. But Wall Street was bailed out, and still receives hundreds of billions of dollars of tax payer money nearly without interest. Meanwhile, Wall Street firms collect much higher interests from education institutions and families.

Things aren't so simple that you could just burn up the debt papers, but imagine if everyone just stopped paying those loans back.

(via truth-out.org)