Screenshots of real people's student debt balances

Total student loan debt in 2021 is 1.7 trillion dollars. SOURCE

• In May 2012 total student loan debt crossed the 1 trillion dollar mark. - SOURCE
• About 1 in 8 (12.9% or 42.9 million) people in the United States carry student loan debt. SOURCE

 The Bennett hypothesis 

In 1987, U.S. Education Secretary Bill Bennett theorized that increases in federal student aid would cause an increase in college tuition. Some have called this hypothesis bunk but others believe wholeheartedly in it. The general idea is that if the government backs student loans and guarantees that the student absolutely has to pay it back then of course colleges and universities would raise the price to attend school. What would you do if you were a lender of any kind and you knew that once your borrowers took money from you they absolutely had to pay it back one day? The answer is you would increase the amount of money that you let people borrow. Which would you rather have, a person that owes you a guaranteed $5K or a person that owes you a guaranteed $50K? The answer is obvious. You want people to owe more. It's a bit different with schools because they get their money up front and the student just spends a lifetime repaying the loan. Either way, the school wants more money spent on their courses to line their own pockets. Do not be gullible or naive. 

Bankruptcy

Student loan debt is all but impossible to discharge in bankruptcy proceedings SOURCE. In other words, you are stuck with student loan debt until you pay it off if you ever do. The conditions needed to discharge student debt in bankruptcy are highly unlikely to be true in the average person's situation so most won't qualify.

In 2005, a legislative act known as the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act made several changes to the United States bankruptcy code including the ability to discharge student loan debt in bankruptcy.

21 years

It takes the average student loan borrower 21 years to completely pay off student loan debt SOURCE. If you graduate at 22 you're looking at a payoff age of around 43 years old. Half your life is over and now you can finally be free of your debt. What an efficient education system we have(sarcasm). 

The 1 million dollar myth

There is a pervasive myth that exists about college which states that college graduates make on average 1 million dollars more in their lifetime than non-college graduates. Let's break that down:

• If you even manage to find a well-paying job, that extra income is oftentimes offset by the debt repayment. It takes 21 years on average to pay off student loan debt. 

• If you work for 40 years after college your extra 1 million would come out to about $25K per year. What the HELL are you going to do with an extra $25K per year? That really doesn't do much for the average household. If a couple has two kids, two cars, a mortgage and so on that $25K is peanuts.

Watch: The million dollar myth

Read: The Million Dollar Myth

Read: The Great College Hoax

Read: A College Degree Does Not Make You A Million Dollars  

Student loan debt forgiveness

At the time of writing this passage (2021) one of the biggest buzz topics on social media and news outlets is student loan debt forgiveness. You are told your whole life that even if you take out student loans to pay for college it will be ok because you'll get a well-paying job that can easily pay off the debt. If that was the case then why would millions of Americans be advocating for student loan debt forgiveness?