Student loan debt has exceeded credit card debt in the United States for two years. Now, another
unpleasant milestone:
The amount of student loans taken out last year crossed the $100 billion mark for the first time and total loans outstanding will exceed $1 trillion for the first time this year.
As tuitions go up, so does student borrowing, which went up 63 percent between 2000 and 2010, when full-time undergraduates were borrowing an average of $4,963. This is debt that you can't default on; it sticks with you even through bankruptcy. That means that a generation is basically starting out in a giant hole. At least, those in the generation whose parents can't afford those rising tuitions—making it one more piece of inequality that people enter their adult lives with.
But talking about something like free public higher education would be crazy, of course.