The Real College Debt Crisis: How Student Borrowing Threatens Financial Well-Being and Erodes the American Dream

Commendation Quotes: "Higher education, once seen as the great equalizer, too often leaves students on divergent tracks: one leading to success for the haves, the other to bitter disappointment and big debt for the have-nots. This new book dares to imagine a day when society invests more in needy students before they go to college, so they can borrow less and have more once they finish."Marc Notes: Is it still worth it for low-income students to attend college, given the debt incurred? This book provides a new framework for evaluating the financial aid system in America, positing that aid must not only allow access to higher education, but also help students succeed in college and facilitate their financial health post-college. Commendation Quotes: "In an era of increasing inequality, ensuring access to a high-quality education can be a great equalizer. But an over-reliance on student loans has created new obstacles in the form of rising costs and debilitating debt. In their paradigm-shifting critique of our financial aid system, Elliott and Lewis explore the potential of elevating the role of savings and assets. Their promising and forward-looking alternatives will undoubtedly shake up the policy conversation."Commendation Quotes: "Higher education is a path to economic mobility and America's global competitiveness. Elliott and Lewis brilliantly demonstrate how broken that pathway is and how its brokenness warps aspirations. Their book provides a blueprint to reinvigorating the educational pathway for the 21st century."Commendation Quotes: "Elliott and Lewis carefully document that relying on student loans as the primary instrument for college financing is woefully ineffective. Too many takers of student loans suffer in the long run, and they have run up a debt tab of over one trillion dollars--more than total credit card debt. This misguided policy has run its course. But what is the alternative? Elliott and Lewis suggest greater reliance on asset accumulation--through Children's Savings Accounts--before college. In the words of Elliott and Lewis, this is a paradigm shift. Whatever we call it, the time for this policy change has arrived."Biographical Note: William Elliott III is associate professor in the School of Social Welfare at the University of Kansas and director of the Assets and Education Initiative. Melinda K. Lewis is associate professor of practice in the School of Social Welfare at the University of Kansas and policy director of the Assets and Education Initiative. Commendation Quotes: "Elliott and Lewis have given us an important book. . . . [They] remind us that economic mobility depends on federal, state, and institutional systems working in concert to achieve the vision of prosperous families in a vibrant society . . . and encourage us to take bold steps forward on a new path to the American Dream."Brief Description: "The central motivation for this book is imagining an alternative to the student loan program that better aligns with America's belief that effort and ability should be the deciding factors in determining economic differences. It positions postsecondary education properly as the central lever by which American children can secure for themselves promising futures, and it supports analysis of the extent to which current policy interventions facilitate these mechanisms, or not"--Publisher Marketing: Higher education plays a critical role in the economy and society of the United States, creating a ladder of economic opportunity for American children, especially for those in poverty. Unfortunately, higher education today increasingly reinforces patterns of relative privilege, particularly as students without the benefit of affluent parents rely more and more on student loans to finance college access. This book presents penetrating new information about the fiscal realities of the current debt-based college loan system and raises tough questions about the extent to which student loans can be a viable way to facilitate equitable access to higher education. The book opens with relevant parts of the life stories of two students--one who grew up poor and had to take on high amounts of student debt, and another whose family could offer financial help at critical times. These real-life examples provide invaluable insight into the student debt problem and help make the complex data more understandable. A wide range of readers--from scholars of poverty, social policy, and educational equality to policymakers to practitioners in the fields of student financial aid and financial planning--will find the information in this text invaluable.

Contributor Bio:  Elliott, William William Elliott was a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Sciences and Head of Biochemistry at The University of Adelaide for 23 years. Bill passed away in 2012, and the book was subsequently prepared for publication by his wife Daphne.