Slavery in disguise

When I left grad school in 2008, I owed $70k in federal student loans. (A poor choice I wouldn’t make again.) For the past 11 years, I’ve been making payments (except for a period of under employment), totaling about $60,000 in payments. Guess how much I still owe.

$70,000.

— Lacy M. Johnson (@lacymjohnson) 12 December 2019

The federal government doesn't trust teenagers with a can of beer. Yet, it's perfectly willing to have them sign a life-long contract for tens of thousands of dollars for a largely useless piece of paper. End result: millions of young people get crushed under a mountain of debt.

Worse, the generation responsible for this lunacy doesn't even have a clue about the staggering increase in tuition costs.

My mother says the same thing! 🙄 She paid $5,000 for four years at UConn and can’t understand why I won’t consider sending my son to my alma mater (5,000 a year while I was there, now 28,000 a year.)

— Keira Bauer-Severy (@KeiraBSevery) 12 December 2019

Annual tuition for mom: $1,250.

Annual tuition for son: $28,000.

Average wage increase in that time frame? A sad joke.