<p>Interesting. Some snippets for those who haven't clicked on the links.</p>
<p>"At a time when deep uncertainty permeates the economy, graduates across the country are entering the workplace with staggering liabilities. The average student debt has doubled since the mid-1990s.</p>
<p>And that burden often has an effect on the most fundamental choices graduates are making about their lives — decisions about home, family and career....</p>
<p>Educators and economists have argued for decades that higher education represents a great long-term investment, thanks to the higher wages graduates can command. Janet Cantelon, director of student financial services at Seattle University, points out that even $300 a month is manageable for most graduates — the equivalent of a car payment — and a good long-term investment.</p>
<p>Yet the payoff is simply not as good as it once was.</p>
<p>Workers with bachelor's degrees do earn more — an average $51,000 a year, compared with $31,000 a year for high-school graduates, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. But the department also reports that college tuition now costs five times what it did in the early 1980s, and it is rising at more than twice the rate of inflation. Inflation-adjusted wages, meanwhile, have remained stagnant since 2002.</p>
<p>And experts say there are some worrying trends in the rising debt levels — particularly in the precipitous rise in private loans, at least until recent months. More and more of those loans are directly marketed to students, without any oversight or involvement from schools, and often at higher interest rates</p>
<p>In 1997, the federal government financed almost all student loans, with private loans making up just 5 percent of the market, according to the College Board.</p>
<p>But with the government failing to keep pace with costs, the private sector last year wrote at least 22 percent of the loans...."
Local</a> News | Graduates drowning in debt from high cost of college | Seattle Times Newspaper</p>