Student Loan Discolsure - hahahahaha

       The New York Times, we need to have a little talk about your Editorial of May 22, 2012, "Full Disclosure for Student Borrowers."  In this editorial, the paper states that outstanding student debt is a huge problem in America.  (Which it is, as more money is owed in America on Student Loans than on Credit Cards, and Student Loans cannot be discharged in bankruptcy - but I digress)  The editorial goes on to describe a student who has no hope of paying her $120,000 in undergraduate loans, and states that the remedy for this student loan crisis is to make sure that colleges and universities are up front and clear about what loans are, what grants are, and what repaying a loan is going to look like.
      The last three sentences of the editorial sum up the New York Times' thesis nicely:

          Congress should also require schools to provide in-depth, annual loan counseling to students and set criteria for the information that must be provided. All schools should be required to disclose annually the average debt load of their graduates.  Before students borrow to pay for their education, they need to understand the obligations they are taking on, and how long it will take to pay them off.

Don't get me wrong, I completely agree.  Students and their families should be much better informed, and annualy informed, about the loans they are taking out.  I agree.

       But that's not the real problem.  The REAL problem is that a college education costs far and away more than it ever did before, and far and away more than it should.  I am 30 now, and I went to college in the fall of 2000, when I was 18.  I was very lucky to have been accepted by a highly selective private college, and I could not be more devoted to the place - which I absolutely loved and still love.  When I first matriculated, it cost around $32,000 a year.  I had everything you could ask for.  Small classes where the professors knew my name.  There was a recreational gym nicer than any gym I could afford now.  There were outstanding lab facilities, the grounds were spotless, the library well funded.  I studied abroad in London for a semester for the same price as normal tuition.  There were countless sports teams, there were countless campus plays.  My senior year I lived in a townhouse, which was owned by the college and for which my parents paid regular dorm fees, that had 2 bathrooms, 1 full kitchen, cable tv, and a washer/dryer - all for 4 students.  I had everything.  We couldn't go half a week without a famous speaker coming to campus to talk to us or an amazing band or arts organization coming to perform. I only wish I'd taken advantage of it all at the time!

       So here's how it is now.  That $32,000 a year is, adjusted for inflation, now around $41,600 in 2012 dollars.  Ok, fine.  That's a gigantic pile of money.  True.  However, the actual fees at my beloved alma mater will be almost $56,000 for the upcoming school year.  What is that extra $14,400 per year buying?  I, honestly, don't have the faintest idea.  Smarter and better informed folks than I have spilled plenty of ink trying to figure that one out.

       The real problem isn't loans, although providing loan counseling and making them dischargeable in bankruptcy would ease the burdens of many.  The real problem is that (for virtually all but the richest Americans) income is not increasing relative to inflation, and the cost of college is increasing much faster than inflation.  Higher education costs are just taking up more and more of a family's budget.  It just can't keep going on forever until a college education for one child requires average income parents to save 30% of their salaries for 18 years.  It just can't.  Cancelling the cable tv (as one NYT editorial online commenter suggested) isn't going to enable families to save enough.  We, as a society, need to make sure that any qualified student, regardless of his or her parents' income, has the opportunity to earn a college degree without crippling debt.

       The other issue at hand is that 18 year olds, kids who have been told for 18 years that they will fly as high as their dreams, are not going to be good judges of their own abilities to pay loans back.  It doesn't matter how much disclosure they get.  Their parents are often even more clueless.  Of course every parent thinks his or her little darling is going to get a high paying job at 22 or go on to medical school.  He was on the football team!  She was editor of the year book!  If a bank wouldn't loan an 18 year old $120,000 to start a business, why would the federal government loan her $120,000 to go to school to get a BA in anthropology?  Heck - a bank wouldn't give an unsecured loan to an 18 year old for $23,300 (the average student loan amount) to start a business. 
        Yes, disclosure about student loans would help.  I don't disagree.  But the real problem is the soaring cost of higher education.  Kids (and they are kids) will continue to take out these loans, because that's the only choice they have to get an education.  And let's not kid ourselves, the vast majority of good, physically safe, and well paying jobs go to college graduates.  Some of these kids will take out as much in loans as the forces that be let them.  And many of those who borrow much more responsibly will never be able to pay their loans back.  If you tell an 18 year old and his parents that he's going to need to get a job that pays $75,000 a year after graduation to pay his loans back and, um, eat - he'll still take out the loans, because they think he'll be one of the few to get that $75,000 a year job at the age of 22.  It's magical thinking - and WE ALL suffer from it.
       I appreciate that you are paying attention to the Student Loan crisis, The New York Times.  But you missed the target with this one.