Support the fact-based journalism you rely on with a donation to Marketplace today. Give Now!

Student debt burden hits $1 trillion

Sally Herships Apr 25, 2012

Jeremy Hobson: President Obama will be in Iowa today talking to college students about their loans. The president wants to prevent a scheduled increase in student loan interest rates that’s supposed to take effect this summer. Mitt Romney is also pushing for a freeze on student loan interest rates — but let’s put the politics aside for a moment and focus on the issue.

By some estimates, there is now a trillion dollars in outstanding student loan debt, as Sally Herships reports.


Sally Herships: How much is $1 trillion of student debt?


Mark Kantrowitz:
There’s more student debt outstanding than credit card debt outstanding, more student loan than auto loans outstanding.

That’s Mark Kantrowitz. He publishes Finaid.org, a website about paying for college. He says student loan payments total $60 billion a year. That can drag down the economy. Graduates are still paying for their education instead of:

Kantrowitz: Buying a car, buying a house, getting married, having children, saving for retirement.

Tianna Kennedy is 34 and has a masters degree from N.Y.U. She was hoping to become a professor but now she works as farmer and earns $8 an hour. She still has over $80,000 in debt.

Tianna Kennedy: In retrospect, I really wish I hadn’t gone to get a master’s because I’m doing wage labor work. I feel like I’m in bondage for the rest of my life.

In New York, I’m Sally Herships for Marketplace.

There’s a lot happening in the world.  Through it all, Marketplace is here for you. 

You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible. 

Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.