Thread by @blakezeff

To pundits confused or upset by younger voters & the primary results:

Student debt is a disaster of epic proportions that’s ruining millions of lives & may crash our economy. I’ve been covering it for 3 years. Here’s what political & media types are missing: (1/15)

Today's young adults were told that to have a decent life they *must* go to college. So they did what they thought was the right thing: At 18, they went to school & signed loans for tens of thousands of dollars that guidance counselors said would be easy to pay down later. (2/15)

Remember, the cost of college is way higher than the old days. The average 4-year price-tag (including for public schools) is well over 100k. Tuition is rising 8x faster than wages. The days of working your way through college & graduating with little or no debt are over. (3/15)

What happened? Some didn’t get degrees & are really stuck. Even those who did, entered a job market with dying industries & flat wages (avg post-college salary: 47k). So they’re either spending prime years drowning in debt, or deferring payment & racking up crazy interest. (4/15)

We’re talking about 45 million Americans who now have student debt, owing ~40k on average. That's $1.6 trillion in debt doing nothing for the economy but crushing young people. It’s the biggest consumer debt in America, more than credit cards. This is 70% of college kids. (5/15)

The same establishment that's struggling to understand the voting motivations of these young people, also wonders why they don’t buy homes or cars as much as other generations. Well, if you enter adulthood with 100k in debt, getting a pied-a-tierre can slip your mind. (6/15)

It’s not just the size of the debt. Student loans are notoriously predatory. Deferred/missed payments = big interest rate hikes. Wages can be garnished, professional licenses revoked & they can even get your Social Security. All from seeking an education when you were 18. (7/15)

Some stats:
*1 in 10 millennials say they’d go to jail for a week to be debt-free;
*1/3 wouldn't have gone to college at all had they understood the full extent of the costs;
*Most have “no idea” when their loans will be paid off;
*1 in 8 divorces stem from student debt. (8/15)

You may hear about "loan repayment programs" as a way to help these borrowers. They sound great: pay back a % of your income for a number of years & the debt is forgiven. But these programs help very few. This program rejected 99% of applicants👇 (9/15) usatoday.com/story/opinion/…

Student loans are also the only debts in America you can never get rid of through bankruptcy. Congress decided to single out these loans as a way to save a few bucks for private lenders and the federal government. (10/15)

Of course you can discharge almost any *other* debt in bankruptcy:

Get sued for negligence & want to get rid of the damages?✅

Delinquent on taxes & want to get rid of the balance?✅

Bankruptcy is reserved for sympathetic cases like these, or MC Hammer & Donald Trump. (11/15)

BTW, grad school is even *worse* than college. Wanna be a dentist? That’s 261k in debt. A veterinarian? Around 200k in debt. Veterinarians are literally killing themselves at alarming rates... strictly because of their crippling student debt load. (12/15) foxbusiness.com/healthcare/hig…

These problems hit communities of color the most. 85% of black students seeking a bachelor’s degree have student debt & AA default rates are higher. This all builds on itself since huge loan payments make it hard to build your career & grow income. (13/15) cnbc.com/2019/07/27/how…

In sum, many Americans’ first experience with capitalism was to enter adulthood deep in debt. They did everything "right" but got stuck with crippling debt, while watching big banks get bailed out for ruining the economy. This is the context for many voters’ world-view. (14/15)

A man named @johnsonsenate was Pres. Trump’s head of student aid. After seeing the horrors of the system, this life-long Republican quit & now wants to cancel student debt.
The tide is turning. And those overlooking this problem are missing a big story of today's America. /END