Op/Ed: AU Trustee, Gary Cohn, Betrays Our Trust
In the media and on college campuses, the student debt crisis has been a topic of intense discussion. The fact that the average U.S. college student graduates with $30,000 of debt, and that the total student debt in the U.S. now stands at over $1 trillion (more student debt than that of the rest of the world combined), no longer sits quite as well with the American public. Our system of higher education, which has long been lauded as a stairway to the American Dream and a leveler of playing fields, is now being exposed for what it is. Its structure has produced an unsustainable, corporatized racket, the result of which is the perpetuation of entrenched systems of inequality. The famously destabilizing nature of student debt is discouraging many from pursuing higher education, even as a college degree becomes increasingly critical. It is limiting the economic prospects of the many students who graduate owing tens of thousands to the federal government, commercial banks and private companies.