Finally, a spotlight on the student loan debacle

[Broken Arrow]

The sub-prime real estate situation seems to be the media darling for our current economic woes, but another danger lies in student loans.

Article

[jodi]

That's a scary article. I felt my $15,500 in loans was suffocating upon graduating. I cannot even imagine owing 3 or 4 times my salary.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

Yeah, definitely something to brace against. But this from the article does not particularly make me sympathetic:

Dr. Paul-Henry Zottola, a 35-year-old periodontist in Rocky Hill, Conn., faces paying $1,600 a month on his student loan on top of a $2,300 mortgage payment and $1,500 on the loan he took out to start his practice.

So if you have $1600 a month student loan payments plus $1,500 a month business start up loan, why get or stay with a $2,300 a month mortgage!? I know Connecticut is very high for housing, but somehow I think Paul-Henry could have done better for himself. I wish the article had chosen a more typical example in place of this one.

[cptacek]

I'm also not very sympathetic to this statement:
"Cole said she may need to get a job at a law firm, "doing something that I'm not real dedicated to, just for the sake of being able to live.""

Cry me a river. People have to do things they don't want to do to get by all the time. Maybe she should have checked into the price tag vs. what she "really wanted to do" before spending that kind of money.