Paying student loans is, for many, a bad idea. Sure, your credit is wrecked, but if you have no income to base payments on, you don't get credit anyway (unless the TBTFs are inflating another bubble and need warm bodies). And it's not like a good job is bound to happen, since an increasing number of US jobs pay in the minimum-wage ballpark - whether you have a degree or not. The bottom line is that we are at the point that from an actuarial perspective, a college degree has become not worth the money, which means means that aside from the schools that are assured of the children of the rich, the entire university system is primed to collapse. And although cancellation of all student debt (most of which is going to wind up defaulted on, anyway) would serve as a huge fiscal stimulus, that's not going to happen, since in the current political climate it's the wealthy who are given large sums of public money while the poor are begrudged their food stamps.
Paying student loans is, for many, a bad idea. Sure, your credit is wrecked, but if you have no income to base payments on, you don't get credit anyway (unless the TBTFs are inflating another bubble and need warm bodies). And it's not like a good job is bound to happen, since an increasing number of US jobs pay in the minimum-wage ballpark - whether you have a degree or not. The bottom line is that we are at the point that from an actuarial perspective, a college degree has become not worth the money, which means means that aside from the schools that are assured of the children of the rich, the entire university system is primed to collapse. And although cancellation of all student debt (most of which is going to wind up defaulted on, anyway) would serve as a huge fiscal stimulus, that's not going to happen, since in the current political climate it's the wealthy who are given large sums of public money while the poor are begrudged their food stamps.