Student debt is crippling

As the amount of debt college students take on from student loans continues to rapidly escalate, one commonly overlooked result is what that debt will do to the economy.

According to a September story in The Wall Street Journal, U.S. Education Department figures show that today two-thirds of college students borrow to pay for college, and their average debt load is $23,186.

A dozen years ago, 58 percent of students borrowed to pay for college and the average amount borrowed was $13,172.

During a Wednesday stop in Salina, Fort Hays State University President Edward Hammond noted that in this school year, for the first time in the state's history, the amount of money the state contributes to higher education was surpassed by what students pay in tuition.

The implications of this are ominous, Hammond noted. Higher student loan payments mean that graduates won't be able to buy cars, houses and a variety of other things that help spur the economy.

Hammond says colleges have a number of options, including limiting access to colleges, cutting their budgets, increasing class sizes, and drastically increasing tuition -- none of which he supports.

His preferred solution, as noted in Thursday's story by Journal reporter Michael Strand, is to rework the state's tax structure, including the elimination of all sales tax exemptions.

We'll leave it to our legislators to decide if that solution would work, but it's clear that Hammond is right about a couple of things: The old education model in Kansas is broken and we can't keep crippling the economy by shifting the cost of higher education onto the backs of students and their parents.

"All it's (paying off student loan debt) doing is taking money from our economy in the future. I don't expect kids to understand that -- but lawmakers should," Hammond said.



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