Student debt: What does it actually do for and to you?

As I have shown before, Credit Karma gives me a monthly update on whether my finances are moving in the right direction - down - or the wrong directions, no change or increasing. Last month, the report was my student debt went down $13.00.

Yes, thirteen whole dollars.

I can assure you my monthly payment is a whole lot more than that. Actually, at this point in the scale, it is about $110.00 per month, which means that lending company is keeping almost $100 of my money and my student debt will go down very, very slowly.

Of course, I am not alone. Mandy, a 28-year old college grad living in New York City, chronicles her journey from almost overwhelming student debt to pay-off. She is under no misconceptions that merely being free of her student debt is the end of it. She also has some thoughts about a topic the current batch of Democratic presidential hopefuls have bandied about for some time...student debt forgiveness. While it sounds good on paper, it has sounded to me like fixing a broken brain after years of being a professional football player in the National Football League.

Will the after-action do anything about reducing or removing the initial problem? Here is what she wrote:

I'm all for debt forgiveness, but I don't think it alone will solve the problem. We need to attack the issue at its core: predatory private lenders with high interest rates, tuition hikes, and the lack of education an 18-year-old gets making such a huge financial decision. The system is broken and it's time we vote for lawmakers who are committed to fixing it in its totality.

To me, her phrase "predatory private lenders with high interest rates" is the key. Our government wants its people to fund college education by borrowing huge sums of "easy" money from for-profit organizations. Long ago, I had a student loan from the State of Alaska. The interest rate was 1% over the life of the loan until they sent me a very apologetic-sounding letter saying they would have to double the rate...to 2%.  My federal loans started at 5% and are now well above that, even though I continue to pay on them.

Another student, Jessica, had a similar experience:

For 10 years, we'd been just paying the minimum and not thinking about it much. In late 2015, we moved to a lower-cost-of-living city and started making a little more money, and decided it was a good time to reevaluate our finances — particularly as we had an infant son to think about. Also, the debt had been a thorn in the side of our marriage and we wanted to stop fighting about it and problem-solve.

When we checked the balance, it was still $71,000!!! The interest rate was so high, we'd barely made a dent. We decided to live like monks and put every extra cent toward the debt until it's done.


At $13 a month, I might never get out of this burdensome, $30,000 student debt. My predatory private lender, one of those approved by the US Department of Education to lend tax dollars to college students, will make a lot of money on my student debt and that of thousands of other students, current and past.