At the June 2013 TEDx event in Seattle, Washington, Greg Gottesman who teaches Entrepreneurship at the University of Washington gave a speech titled “On Trillion Dollars, Student Debt and Higher Education” in which he described the current state of financing education in America as not sustainable. According to Mr. Gottesman, “we have allowed an entire generation of students to be placed under an unfathomable amount of debt.”
During his presentation, Mr. Gottesman gave the following statistics in regards to student loans:
– Student loan debt exceeds $1 trillion
– Student loan debt exceeds all auto and credit card debt
– 2 out of every 3 students have student loans; and for minorities the percentage is much higher
– 35% of all graduates under age 30 are seriously delinquent on their student loans at 90 days past due
– Since 1978, tuition has increased 1,000%
– Between 2000-2010, public 4 year university tuition increased 72% while wages decreased 14.7%
Mr. Gottesman noted that financing education in America is not sustainable because lenders freely lend knowing that their loans cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. As Mr. Gottesman explains, “there is no natural market force on colleges and universities to keep the cost of tuition reasonable because students have such easy access to money and so you have this vicious cycle.”
Although student loans cannot be discharged in bankruptcy, roughly $150 billion in private student loans can be settled for less by a debt settlement law firm.
For the entire TEDxSeattle Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IEkncWZffY
If you are delinquent on your student loan debt, you may want to look in to debt settlement. An experienced settlement attorney can likely help you negotiate the total amount that the private student loan creditor claims due.