Student Debt

The Benefit Of Student Debt.

Why is America the only place in the world where students go into debt? American students have to borrow money for college more than any other country. It's because the people who lend the money, like banks, benefit from it. They're the ones who make money off of student debt, and the borrowers end up with a lot of debt that's hard to pay off. Plus, they can't even declare bankruptcy to get rid of it. This is all part of a system that uses debt to control society.

It wasn't always like this. Before Reagan's presidency, college was mostly affordable for everyone. Free education has always been important in America. Thomas Jefferson created the first free college in the country, the University of Virginia. Abraham Lincoln made sure that there were many colleges across America that were free or almost free. After World War II, the GI Bill made it possible for soldiers to go to college for free. This was a good investment because it produced more tax revenue in the long run.

However, in the last forty years, things have changed. The American education system has been damaged by Reaganomics. The middle class in America has a lot of student debt, which is not the case in other developed countries. Many people have worked hard to pay off their student loans, but they never should have had to borrow so much in the first place. Rich people don't have to borrow money to go to college, so it's not fair that others have to struggle with debt.

Republicans used to say that if they cut funding to colleges and universities in the 1980s, students would take their studies more seriously and we would produce more engineers and scientists. But instead of better outcomes, our country now has a huge $2 trillion student debt problem that prevents young people from buying homes, starting businesses, or having families. Meanwhile, banks that support Republican politicians make billions of dollars in profits from these loans that students can't negotiate.

We know from the past that giving free college education through the GI Bill after World War II created more tax revenue than it cost. Other developed countries have followed suit with free or affordable higher education, but not the United States. Why? Because our politicians are being bribed.

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Talking Points Information

Forty years of the Reagan Revolution has made student debt crippling two generations of young Americans: over 44 million people carry the burden, totaling a $1.8 trillion drag on our economy that benefits nobody except the banks earning interest on the debt.