You are a parent, use for educators and administrators, the number is please make sure you meet thae mute the tv when you call in. Hasg tag, cspan. Our facebook poll has been up for a number of hours. You can go to facebook. Com c span. Is College Worth going into debt . Lets go to new york and hear from marian wang. She is the education reporter for propublica joining us byvia skype. Thank you for having me. What got you interested in the area of student debt . There are record numbers for student debt. I began covering education. I got sucked into it. So much is happening in that space. There are hard Economic Times that is putting an extra crunch on students and families at a time and College Costs keep rising. We showed audiences the the conversation you participated in a couple of months ago. The scope of the issue and the size of the student debt that we are dealing with these days. The government issued more than a hundred billion dollars in Student Loans to families and grad students and parents carries. Over all, the big number that youll hear is this past year that student debt exceeded one trillion dollars. That is a big number. It also exceeded outstanding Credit Card Debt. Those are two big milestone to hear a lot. A student who has graduated from a fouryear school with an undergrad degree, how much Student Loan Debt do they carry typically . It ranges and the type of school that you go to. Community colleges can be different from a private four year school. The average student debt for undergraduates is about 24,000 in that neighborhood. 24,000 is the average student debt. We have calls waiting. We have marian wang from new york. We have a caller, chris. Welcome. Hi. How are you doing . Doing just fine. I graduated from a private college in new york. I have an Associates Degree and have about 80,000 in student debt. We have about 1 trillion in Student Loans which are owed. In 2005, they got rid of the bankruptcy option. The biggest problem is that lack of a bankruptcy option. With the unemployment rate, they say it is 810 . There is no way this economy is turning around in the next few years. There seems to be no solution to this problem. The problem was federally backed didnt loans. Student loans. The Government Forces children to go to kate12 grade k12 grades. How long have you been out of college . How much student debt do you owe . I have been out of college for six years. I o about 80,000 i owe about 80,000. Chris is right about the bankruptcy option. Student loans are difficult to discharge through the bankruptcy process. It is unusual for consumer debt. There havs been a push in congress to restore the bankruptcy provision. What would that do . You fall on a hard time and you declare a group c and for the most part and you declare bankruptcy, and for the most part, your debt is not dischargeable through bankruptcy. You sort of shed red card debt through bankruptcy, but you cannot shed Student Loan Debt. Restoring private student that, debt private student that is not the majority of outstanding student debt. It is about 10 or 15 . We have a caller in sacramento, california. Caller hello. My problem is that i start going to school in 1985. I had some hardship. At the time in 1981 when i took out a loan, i owed 3000. Now i o 8,000. Now i owe 8,000. I have not been able to pay the loan back. Recently i pay that loan for a whole year. I got it out of default and went back to school. One of my kids got sick, gravely ill. I had to step out of school and the loan went back into default. Host that is an example of someone who could not use the bankruptcy option you talked about. Guest it sounds like she has been trying to repay it and has been able to do it at some times. It does seem like you are a good candidate and in some cases there are Better Options for people who might need some help i need to defer their loan or look into some of the federal repayment plans that might be more lower the Monthly Payment significantly. Host the conversation that you are part of the propublica discussion back in november showed that president of the chief enrollment officer at New York University. Enrollment advisor, i should say, in particular at nyu. Take a listen. Financial aid counselors and Financial Aid advisors. We know what the facts tell us. We have additional info there. It is our policy that we are not providing or doing any Financial Advising for families. We help them understand that this is a grant, this is a loan, you have to repay a loan. We help them understand their longterm obligation. But we are not qualified, nor should we be making decisions for families. We cannot tell them, you cannot come here because you cannot afford to be here. We do not know what Additional Resources they might have. You need to consider carefully what this will mean longterm. Host marian wang, the official from New York University what do you think the role of universities in guiding students for the future is . Traditionally, it has been what randy has said. We are not financial advisors. These tough times with the College Investment being significant as it is financially, with the costs continuing to rise, there is a degree to which there are families, there is the government, and there are schools. Neither the government or the schools feel comfortable stepping in and saying, this might be too much for you. You might want to rethink this decision. No one wants to say that to families. When you talk about families who may not be that financially savvy and are sending a child to college for the first time and are not acquainted with the system, there is a lot in terms of Financial Education that is lacking. Who will be there to help these families educate them selves and make sure they understand the terms of these loans that will affect them for years to come . Host we are spending the next warning or 50 minutes talking to you about Student Loans and College Costs. The numbers to use if you are a student or if you graduated, please call 2025853885. For the parents, 2025853886. For educators and administrators, 2025853887. One in five households of student debt, the average college debt is 23,300. 93 of Student Loans are government issued. Education Department Says they issued 157 billion in student aid in 2011. Hedidi in tennessee. Caller hi. How are you . Host fine thanks. Caller thank you for taking my call. I have almost completed my doctorate degree are. I am a college professor. My Student Loan Debt is three times my annual income. I husband and i cannot afford to pay our student loan payments Monthly Payments because it is about 11,000 per month. Can you talk about options for repayment . Guest the government ruled out it goes further and lowering Monthly Payments. If you qualify for it, it moves up the date for which your loans are forgiven. It can be 20 years instead of 25. Some can go further than the incomebased repayment. Host here is a tweet. I only can read my Bank Statement with a piece of mind. Next caller. Caller im a student. I was a student. I finished my doctorate. I had Student Loans that were about 57,000. Four years later, i got it down to 41,000. This is the only Student Loan Debt i had. I know what it is like to watch almost 600 or month going to debt funds. Im calling as an educator because i heard the student loan situation is akin to the Mortgage Loan scandaltw two yeas ago. I very much disagree with that. I can speak from my own experience. People were making sure that it was sound and everything was in the right place. Thinking about our families one, i aswe [indiscernible] people come in with a certain level of skills and we try to assess those skills. We try to help those students, those africans, to compete. Host we will let you go there and ask marian wang. Guest do two things do not quite mirror each other. There were periods when, like the Mortgage Market was much looser than it is today. Wered as were skere particular schools that had agreements with lenders. Now they are facing the consequences. It is definitely a burden that they may have signed their name on the on track part, that they did not on the contract part, but they did not understand. That was happening. That mirrored some of the verbiage Housing Market. Host we want to show some comments from mark in november. He talked about the shifting of College Costs and the burden from the government to families. Here is what he had to say. Over the last four decades, the burden of paying for college has shifted on the federal and State Government to the families. The only form of Financial Aid that has any degree of elasticity is the parent plus loans. The stafford loans have a limit. The parent plus loans do not have a limit. And that has nothing to do with the familys ability to repay that debt. The students and the parents, they are chasing a dream. They will sign whatever piece of paper is in front of them without hating attention to the details. They figure they will deal with it without paying attention to the details. They figure they will do will it after they graduate. There is much you can do to reduce the debt. You can attend and in school and instate college. Some do not go to college. Some have generous Financial Aid policies. Once you are on campus, you can buy cheaper textbooks and sell them back to the bookstore. But that is not as much as you can you can save by going to a less expensive college. Host talking about College Costs and student debt tonight on cspan, we have lines set aside for students, parents, and educators. Marian wang is an education reporter from propublica. She was part of the panel there in new york. We go to a parent, cindy. Caller hello. My name is cindy. I have kids in a state school, a private school, and estate school. This is of 0 a state school. This is of great concern to me. Education has become a business. It is not a business where you are paying an instant touche and to educate an institution to educate you and the success is performance based. What happens when students do not get that education and what responsibility do the institutions have as far as educating people that are going to be employable . Guest i think that is a great question. That is one of the Main Responsibilities of education. They need to make sure that your skills will be transferable to the job market. I do believe that there is a conversation now. There is a conversation happening to train the president and the schools about whether schools need to be held more accountable for outcomes. We have to recognize that it is a difficult job market that is not the fault of schools, but students need to Pay Attention to what kind of Educational Value and Student Experience and retention and graduation rates. Talk to alumni. See what their experience is and what is happening in the job market for them. There is aa tng, weet. Marian is wrong. Guest the cost of college is rising faster than the rate of inflation. There are two things that we can impart a little bit. There is a feeser price for tuitionfeef and costs. Net price is when students and families and paying after scholarships and grants. For a long time, it was a Sticker Price that was increasing. Right now, the Sticker Price is increasing and what the students and parents are saying paying. Host mitchell is on the line. Caller thank you for taking my call. All of the statistics i have heard shows that college is a good investment and the debt that students take out is good thadebt. The Student Loans i have gotten they are very easy. I just wanted to call. Host thank you. We will move to an educator from texas. Hi. How are you . Caller hi. How are you . Host doing fine. Go ahead with your common for marian wang. Caller this is a statement. I feel like educators set the foundation for what happens in the world. The problem i have is with the autonomy and the way that we are paid. It does not go along with other things. When you have a student loan, for me, i started teaching in 2001. My First Student loan was in 1998. Because i took out a loan in 1998, im not eligible for any kind of relief for my loan. My salary is such that i need to go back to school in order to be more marketable. I have to go back to school. Host you are talking about going back to school for a masters degree . Caller exactly. You want to be marketable in order to increase your career. As a teacher, your income is not comparable to the way that other careers are done. The caller who spoke earlier said that his loans were easier and he had is given at the government. That is great. I want to help others. But economically, it is difficult for me to pay back Student Loans. Host how much is your debt now, if you do not mind telling me . Caller about 10,000 in debt right now. Do you teach . Caller c. Cy. Lierarterary host next caller. Go ahead with their comment. Caller she joined the military. She wanted to get additional money to move onto or years and get her grad degree. Are there any programs from the federal government or the private arena that could assist her and reduce some of these Monthly Payments because she is military status . Guest she should definitely ask the department. They have tuition assistance. They have other programs that i am not dealing with. There are things that are available. Host did she get into the military so they would help out with some of these costs . Caller im sorry. What was the question . Host did she get into the military so they would help out with some of these costs . Caller absolutely. She decided to do that. She didnt want to go into further debt getting her grad degree. She spent four years serving her country. The private loans are killing her. She is trying to make ends meet. Theyre not budging on Interest Rates at all. Host thank you for sharing your story this evening. Marian wang, in terms of postgraduate degrees, how much is that a part of the big 1 trillion pile of student debt . Guest it is definitely a large part. You hear the stories of people being six figures in that. More often that is grad school or additional education. It is extraordinary. When you hear about 200,000, you know that person must have gotten additional education. That can easily happen when you go to med school. Host robert is a student in florida. Welcome to the conversation. Caller good evening. Why does the government for the students who do not want to pay back their loan, i think Everyone Wants to uphold obligation, but Interest Rates are at 6. 8 . If people are allowed to refinance students have no ability to refinance Student Loans. The rates at the banks are at z ero on deposits, but the students are paying close to 7 . If they reduced the rate and changed the daily interest galatians, it would help people pay off the principal liquor a quicker. Host what is the typical loan rate . Guest he is right. It is about 6 ornate 9 . Or 9 . Some are able to have lower Interest Rates if you have excellent credit. Others, they can go up. He is right. There is a distinction. On student debt, which is not secured the way that a mortgage is secured, if you default, they can take back that house. The same is not the same as student debt. The risk is higher and Interest Rates are higher. There is a lot of talk of Interest Rates prompted being higher than they should be. Host a quick look at our facebook age. Page. Where asking about the college Student Loan Debt. How about the focus on who is picking the groups that can be forgiven . I signed up for debt of 100,000 about understanding what that meant. Again, facebook. Com fcspan. David. Caller i constantly see my students spending money on things other than educational costs. They do not use it for educational expenses. They use it for clothing, cars, the bar, gadgets. Is there any way that colleges can offer mandatory training for freshman and how to use the money properly for what it is intended for . Host marian wang. Guest that is a good question. I hear that a lot from financial administrators. I do think that there could be better training in terms of more advising in the light of do you need this money that you are entitled to the federal government . There is a particular form and all by which they give you a particular sum to cover the costs of your attendance. Students may not need that amount. They get a refund check, and they are excited about it. They do having this cash in their pockets that they can spend. There is a role that Financial Aid officers or schools can play in making sure that you do not have to accept all of the money that you are entitled to. You can decline a loan. You can ask for less than what you are entitled to. Therefore, you can have less debt. Host where doe