Quotes & Sayings About Student Debt

If you must know, my parents came from pretty hardscrabble backgrounds in the southern Midwest. I certainly didn't grow up poor, but I did spend my 20s and early 30s juggling temp jobs and choking on massive student-loan debt. — Meghan Daum

More than ever, a college diploma unlocks economic opportunity, provides students with a wealth of new skills and knowledge, and encourages innovation and growth. But more than ever, it also comes with a mountain of student loan debt. — Mark Pocan

Despite all the challenges facing higher education in America, from mounting student debt to grade inflation and erratic standards, our system is rightly the world's envy, and not just because our most revered universities remain on the cutting edge of research and attract talent from around the globe. We also have a plenitude and variety of settings for learning that are unrivaled. In light of that, the process of applying to college should and could be about ecstatically rummaging through those possibilities and feeling energized, even elated, by them. But for too many students, it's not, and financial constraints aren't the only reason. Failures of boldness and imagination by both students and parents bear some blame. The information is all out there. You just have to look. — Frank Bruni

Moreover, an archetype exists in the nation's consciousness that connects student loan debt with irresponsibility. This is a result of well-publicized accounts of loan defaults in decades past in which students took out loans with no intention of ever paying them back and simply filed for bankruptcy after graduation. This perception was sufficiently strong that in the 1970s, Congress was convinced to remove bankruptcy protections from student loans. However, according to a March 2007 paper by John A. E. Pottow of the University of Michigan, this perception had a fatal flaw: "The fatal problem is that there are no empirical data to buttress the myth that students defraud creditors any more than other debtors."1 In fact, it was shown that when student loans were dischargeable in bankruptcy, there was a less than 1 percent bankruptcy rate among student debtors.2 Nevertheless, this misconception has been so often repeated that it is now indelibly etched in the public's mind. — Alan Collinge

I have younger friends who are in this pinch where they feel they've been counted out before they've had a chance to prove themselves. They've inherited a lot of debt - not just student debt but environmental debt, political debt. They really feel squeezed. — G. Willow Wilson

Seen at Liberty University: I hope the Rapture happens before my student loans are due. — Kevin Roose

And I want to work with this Congress, to make sure Americans already burdened with student loans can reduce their monthly payments, so that student debt doesn't derail anyone's dreams. — Barack Obama

Indentured servitude is banned, but what about students seeking to sell shares of their future earnings in exchange for money up front to pay for their college tuitions? — Robert B. Reich

There are two definitions of deflation. Most people think of it simply as prices going down. But debt deflation is what happens when people have to spend more and more of their income to carry the debts that they've run up - to pay their mortgage debt, to pay the credit card debt, to pay student loans. — Michael Hudson

Just looking at her mother made Cami think about how having another mouth to feed in the house would be a huge burden. She was working her butt off at two jobs already as a registered nurse and a waitress. With a mortgage payment, student loan debt, credit card debt, and loads of other bills that she once did not think about twice, her mother was forced to work longer hours after her now ex-husband abandoned his family for another woman. — Valenciya Lyons

Normally, if someone goes bankrupt, you wipe out the debt and get a fresh start. But that's not permitted with student loans. So the effect is to impoverish many graduates with very high debts. — Michael Hudson

For the past three years, the CIVIX Student Budget Consultation has helped us to better understand the most pressing national issues for young Canadians. I am delighted to note that on key issues, such as balancing the budget, debt reduction, and lowering taxes, we stand in step with the thousands of students who participated in this initiative from coast to coast to coast. I want to thank the students and teachers for investing their time and energy in this worthwhile initiative. Their enthusiastic participation inspires great hope for Canada's future. — Kevin Sorenson

I have a difference with Senator [Bernie] Sanders, who promises free college, which, if you look at the fine print, depends really on governors coming up with a lot of the money, which I don't think is a particularly wise bet. And I have a plan to help people pay down their student debt, because I want to unleash the entrepreneurial energy that young people have. — Hillary Clinton

Students who acquire large debts putting themselves through school are unlikely to think about changing society. When you trap people in a system of debt, they can't afford the time to think. Tuition fee increases are a "disciplinary technique," and, by the time students graduate, they are not only loaded with debt, but have also internalized the "disciplinarian culture." This makes them efficient components of the consumer economy. — Noam Chomsky

Student debt is crushing the lives of millions of Americans. How does it happen that we can get a home mortgage or purchase a car with interest rates half of that being paid for student loans? We must make higher education affordable for all. We must substantially lower interest rates on student loans. This must be a national priority. — Bernie Sanders

But credit card debt is unsecured debt, which means if you get in trouble and cannot pay off your credit card, you can discharge it in bankruptcy. What are they going do to you? If you're in a financial position to just methodically pay off both credit card and student loans, pay them all. — Suze Orman

War at home is matched by a war on youth. I wrote about this recently. Young people graduate with an average of $23,000 in student loan debt, and they are the ones saddled with it. Youth have become indentured servants and that turns them away from public service. — Henry Giroux

If you have credit card debt and credit card companies continue to close down the cards, what are you going to do? What are you going to do if they raise your interest rates to 32 percent? That's five times higher than what your kid is going to pay in interest on a student loan. Get rid of your credit card debt. — Suze Orman

[Young people] can't do much with [student debt] other than try to figure out how to pay it down. They can't take jobs they want. They can't get the credit they would like to start a business. So we're going to refinance it, we're going move people into income-contingent repayment plans, we're going to have a date certain when their obligations end, and I'm not going to let the government harass kids. — Hillary Clinton

Debt is so ingrained into our culture that most Americans cannot even envision a car without a payment, a house without a mortgage, a student without a loan, and credit without a card. We — Dave Ramsey

The problem is that nobody talks about what they make. It's shame disguised as humility. Screw that. I'm a thirty-two-year-old assistant and I make $30,000 a year. — Camille Perri

For too many years, politicians in Washington have been eager to pledge more hard-earned taxpayer dollars to help deal with the student debt load. But this doesn't sit right with the many Americans who take pride in making fiscally responsible choices and paying off their loans on time. — John Kline

Debt certainly isn't always a bad thing. A mortgage can help you afford a home. Student loans can be a necessity in getting a good job. Both are investments worth making, and both come with fairly low interest rates. — Jean Chatzky

Learn how to prioritize all your debt. And did you know student loan debt is the most dangerous debt any of us can have? — Suze Orman

The most important loan to pay is your student loan. It's more important than your mortgage, car and credit card payments. You cannot discharge student loan debt in the majority of cases. — Suze Orman

In a speech at the just-concluded G20 summit in London, President Obama urged Americans not to let their fears crimp their spending. It would be unwise, he argued, for Americans to let the fear of job loss, lack of savings, unpaid bills, credit card debt or student loans deter them from making major purchases. According to the president, 'we must spend now as an investment for the future' ... instead of saving for the future, we must spend for the future. — Peter Schiff

Rising student-loan debt is an economic emergency. — Elizabeth Warren

Student loans are destroying the imagination of youth. If there's a way of a society committing mass suicide, what better way than to take all the youngest, most energetic, creative, joyous people in your society and saddle them with, like $50,000 of debt so they have to be slaves? There goes your music. There goes your culture. There goes everything new that would pop out. And in a way, this is what's happened to our society. We're a society that has lost any ability to incorporate the interesting, creative and eccentric people. — David Graeber

Even if you were to fall into extreme financial hardship and file for bankruptcy, you need to understand that your student loan debt will not be discharged in bankruptcy. It is the Velcro of all debts. — Suze Orman

Student loan debt is crushing young people. And so they're not doing the things we would expect them to do. They're not moving out of their parents' homes in as big a numbers, they're not saving up money for down payments, they're not buying homes or cars or starting small businesses or doing any of the things that help move this economy forward. — Elizabeth Warren

Debt is a trap, especially student debt, which is enormous, far larger than credit card debt. It's a trap for the rest of your life because the laws are designed so that you can't get out of it. If a business, say, gets in too much debt, it can declare bankruptcy, but individuals can almost never be relieved of student debt through bankruptcy. — Noam Chomsky

People internalize, from the jail to student loan debt, to credit card debt, to unemployment to the whole collective. It manifests itself in many ways, in people's home lives, domestic stuff. — Jesse Jackson

At a time when the average student is graduating from a four-year college $27,000 in debt, when hundreds of thousands of capable young people no longer see college as an option because of high costs and when the U.S. is falling further and further behind our economic competitors in terms of the percentage of young people graduating from college, no agreement should be passed which, over a period of years, makes a bad situation worse and will make college even less affordable than it is today. — Bernie Sanders

I've said that we're going to produce real results for the American people because so many Americans feel left out and left behind, they think the economy has failed them, they think our government has failed, they can't stand the gridlock and dysfunction in our politics, and I'm determined to produce more good jobs with rising incomes, and deal with all of the concerns that families have about education, college affordability, student debt. — Hillary Clinton

The whole student loan thing drives me completely nuts. If it wasn't possible for 18-year-olds to sign themselves up for tens of thousands of dollars in debt in order to pay their college bills, the state governments wouldn't have found it so politically easy to cut taxpayer support for public colleges and universities. — Gail Collins

selling my soul for student loans and an education. — Shareca Cole.

Debt is always negative, no matter how positively you try to look at it. The "minus" sign in front of your bank balance is a dead giveaway, despite what you might think about leveraging or whatever. It's even worse when it's a credit card or a student loan, and you can't even remember what you've bought or learned with it. Sure, the minimum repayments will eventually cancel it out, but by that time you will most likely have dentures and be peeing anywhere you damn well please. — Ana Spoke

In housing you have jingle mail and you can walk away and leave the bank holding the bag. In the case of student loans, the debt follows you through life, and the banks or government will turn it over to collection agencies that are not very nice people and can do all sorts of harassing things to you. It's becoming a nightmare. — Michael Hudson

Remember that in most cases, student loan debt is not dischargeable in bankruptcy. So you continue to pay it off anyway. Those who have very low interest rates (2-2.5 percent) on student loans and know everything is secure, great. — Suze Orman

I do believe that we should substantially lower student debt in this country, which is crushing millions of people. We pay for it, in my view, by a tax on Wall Street speculation. The middle class bailed out Wall Street in their time of need. Now, it is Wall Street's time to help the middle class. — Bernie Sanders

The future of the Democratic Party, the future of this country is involving young people in the political process, getting them to stand up for their rights, dealing with student debt, which I got to tell you is just crushing people all over this country, making public colleges and universities tuition free, those are the ideas we are bringing out, demanding the wealthy and large corporations start paying their fair share of taxes. This is what younger people, working class people want. That is the future of the Democratic Party. — Bernie Sanders

At most schools, if you switch majors, you basically start over. That means more semesters ... and more money. The former might be appealing, but the latter is a major problem for a demographic already saddled with student debt. — Brian Shactman

There's more student debt than credit card debt! Everywhere I go, I run into young people trying to build careers while they keep shelling out money on their education loans. If the economy is looking for a new generation of home-buyers, I can't imagine they'll get it from these folks. — Gail Collins

As a student of history, I also know civilization's debt to Islam. — Barack Obama

We inherited a strong and flourishing country, and instead of making the investments - that is, the sacrifices - to maintain it, we chose to suck it dry and stick our children with the bill. If you want to see who is to blame for student debt, just look in the mirror. And if parents find themselves supporting kids beyond their college years, that is only, in the aggregate, a form of compensatory justice: the intergenerational transfer of wealth that should have been effected through taxation. — William Deresiewicz

Student loan debt is the reason I don't advise students who want to become entrepreneurs to apply to elite, expensive colleges. They can be as successful if they go to a relatively inexpensive public college. — Vivek Wadhwa

Graduation day means you must now do something with your life. You must grow up and buy your own train tickets, accrue student debt so you can become part of the machine. You must pick a major. The light comes only after that. Sorry about saying that graduation is the light at the end of the tunnel. That was a lie. — A.S. King

Student loans have been helpful to many. But they offer neither incentive nor assistance to those students who, by reason of family or other obligations, are unable or unwilling to go deeper into debt ... It is, moreover, only prudent economic and social policy for the public to share part of the costs of the long period of higher education for those whose development is essential to our national economic and social well-being. All of us share in the benefits - all should share in the costs. — John F. Kennedy

In Mexico, a poor country, higher education is of quite good quality
and is free. Ten years ago the government tried to impose small fees. There was a national student strike and the government backed down. High tuition is not an economic necessity, as is easy to show, but a debt trap is a good technique of indoctrination and control. And resisting this makes good sense. — Noam Chomsky