A few statistics relevant to one of Bernie's major campaign issues, free tuition

[BernieforPres2016]

to public colleges and universities:

- 7 of 10 students leave college with student debt
- Student debt is the most collectible debt there is; it is not dischargeable in bankruptcy
- Student debt is over $1 trillion, the 2nd largest category of debt in the U.S. behind mortgages, larger than auto and credit card loans
- Student debt has more than TRIPLED in the last 10 years
- 31% of student debt is from "for profit" universities, which account for only 13% of college students
- For profit universities cost 5-6 times as much as the average community college and twice as much as the average state university
- The average for profit university spends 20-25% of its revenue on marketing versus 10-20% on faculty

(Recall that Bill Clinton collected over $16 million for serving as the public face of Laureate University, a for profit university mainly outside of the U.S., for 5 years.)

This seems like something that is worthy of discussion to me. There is the morality of what this debt is doing to young people who are coming out of college with student debt that is out of line with what they are able to repay based on their income, particularly for those who attend for profit universities, most of whom don't graduate and get jobs in the field they studied. I believe it is virtually inevitable we are going to see a lot of this debt blow up in the next 10 years just like unsustainable mortgage debt blew up in 2008. Have we seen any talking heads on TV or print journalists talking about this issue in a substantive way during either the Democratic or Republican primaries?

The statistics above come from a 2014 "This Week with John Oliver." We are in a Presidential election year with all kinds of problems, news channels everywhere, and probably the best person in the media in terms of really digging into substantive issues and presenting them in an understandable way is a British comedian. Here's a link to Oliver's piece on student debt, which includes a nauseating example of just how despicable the marketing practices of for profit colleges can be.

[angrychair]

1. The replies you will get

Will be
1) "stupid berniebros want free stuff"

2) "I worked a part-time job and paid my college off before I graduated 30 years ago"

3) "they signed on the dotted line so its their problem, why should my taxes pay for them."

4) it's more appropriate for those type of people and they will be happier, at a local 2-year community college."

I stopped talking about higher education on this site, it was how I have always imagined a right-wing wingnut blog is like based on the trolling and hate and vitriol I got.