Education

Why aren’t student loans simple? Because this is America

From The New York Times: “If we want higher education to cost less, we should make it cheaper when people enroll. But that’s not how we do things in the United States, where the first rule of personal finance is that it should never be simple. … The potential $20,000 in relief per person gets the headlines. But the sleeper element here is a new income-driven debt repayment plan that would help many people pay much less of their student loan debt over time, if they’re not big earners. Instead of helping people up front, when they’re hit with five- and six-figure tuition price tags, we’re taking a plan that used to serve as a safety net and turning it into a stealth subsidy. … In doing so, we confuse the very people we’re trying to help: the young, the old, the sick, the people without much time because they’re working hard to make ends meet.”

View the full article from The New York Times.