Debtors Holiday

I went to school long enough ago that grants and work-study outweighed loans to finance my education. I think I carried an oppressive balance of $2,000 throughout the entire decade of the Eighties. Little did I know then how lucky I was. 

Education was expanding in this country and needed to be financed. Bankers at first boycotted participating in the new educational loan system until they got the guarantee that the debt couldn’t be discharged in bankruptcy. Then, the sky was the limit. 

The problems with the new system - people never being able to get salaries high enough to repay the loans - were foreseeable, and were forseen! The miseries of oppressive, endless debt were chosen by clear-eyed bankers, including the eventual, inevitable end of the system in a debtors holiday. People knew what would happen way back then, and they CHOSE that future! Because they knew they would make a few bucks, at least for awhile. 

We need to do policy better in this country. More grants than loans, for a start.