Ripping Off Young America: The College-Loan Scandal
Whatever happened to personal responsibility?  You're 18, you can smoke, drive, join the army and take out gigantic loans you can't repay.  It's a fine line between making it easy for everyone to go to college and making it easy for a mathematically disinclined person to take out a huge loan for a dumb reason.<p>It would be great for everyone to have the chance to go to some college.  For some reason, people seem to immediately want to get the Porsche experience when they should be opting for the Honda.  So should the government step in to say "hey you can't afford to go to X school because it's too expensive", or should the government allow people to take the risk?  Should more be done to push people into in-state schools, where tuition is often orders of magnitude cheaper?<p>The people in the article bemoan how easy it is to just sign these documents.  Whose fault is that?  They didn't read what they're signing for?  Isn't that their own damn fault?  Couldn't you say the same about stupid car loans?  Stupid short-term loans?  No one forced them to go to college, especially not one that leaves them $40k in debt.<p>In my opinion, too much has been made of the "follow your dreams and let the rest sort itself out" is a big reason for this.  Sometimes you have to weigh following your dreams and figure out if that's your life-long dream or just "hey that sounds like fun".  Just because you get accepted to a great school doesn't mean you can afford it or should go there.