Talk:Student debt

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Old (2011) comment
Recent changes in the article section of this page were discussed at length at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:College_tuition_in_the_United_States&diff=438842734&oldid=438842383 -- some give some take --compromise proposed -- seeing no dissent, we seem to have some concensus -- changes added.71.100.190.35 (talk) 02:46, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Black list link - need help
I attempted to add this edit:

"Another petition on MoveOn.org, which seeks similar relief for student borrowers, has gotten over one million signatures."

My reason was as follows:

"since one 'small' petition was mentioned, it is newsworthy to mention the 'Million Signature' petition on this issue -and cite the source"

My reason seems justified, but I got an error when adding said edit, and, instead, had to add the following:

"Another petition, titled 'Support the Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012' on MoveOn.org (whose link can not be shown in this article because the link is to a site registered on Wikipedia's Spam blacklist) which seeks similar relief for student borrowers, has gotten over one million signatures."

Wikipedia is nothing but a constant soap opera, complete with argument, drama, strife, and contention, which means that I am not inclined to register a screen name to look into this, but if there are registered editor(s) who agree with my feeling that this 'MoveOn" link is newsworthy (surely, since it is a million unique signatures, it is as newsworthy as the much smaller petition), then I would be guided by your input.

Disclaimer: I am not the author of this petition, and in fact, the author, Robt Applebaum, is very weird, rude, and offensive, some of it in a bad way, but that does not alter the fact that his petition is newsworthy. (Apparently other editors agree as I see that before I arrived, he was already mentioned, and that without dissent.)

Thank you,71.101.49.42 (talk) 03:54, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

PS: Even when trying to discuss this on the 'talk' page, the link is not allowed, so I am having to remove it and merely make reference to it in this post here.71.101.49.42 (talk) 03:54, 25 June 2013 (UTC)


 * It might be better to find a reliable source (like a news article) that references the petition.   Calidum Sistere   04:09, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I'll look into that. Thank you.71.101.49.42 (talk) 05:50, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

US or International?
Just noting that this article on student debt seems more focused on the U.S. and little on the rest of the world.

For instance in 1992 Finland went off of student debt, and statistically is currently similar to the U.S. in employment stats for the 25-34 age group. The big difference is that there has been increased parental support for college, there are greater number of college graduates than the U.S., greater diversity of work for those without college degrees, and 25-34 have greater net worth created by lack of student loans (although housing loans are now a problem). On the downside they are spending more than the U.S. as percentage of GDP for this education.

Aemartinofscb (talk) 14:40, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Good idea: You have my personal blessings to add content related to other countries (as has some articles), so long as you find reliable sources to which you may cite.71.101.60.38 (talk) 12:19, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

My plan for adding on to this article
Hey guys, I am going to be working on this Wikipedia page for my English class. I feel passionate about this topic as I am currently a college student in the United States. I am going to be researching and making a few changes to this page. I am thinking of providing information of more countries and their way of dealing with college education. I want to also show the facts and figures of how the debt situation is hurting numerous Americans. I would also like to show some ways there are to get around taking thousands of dollars in loan for students without having to challenge the million dollar banks and lenders that will resist any sort revolutionizing force. I would love to hear some suggestions you guys have for me. Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Attendee7 (talk • contribs) 18:27, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

How to propose major changes?
I am new to contributing to Wikipedia. A volunteer has given kind advice: I should discuss my plans here before I spend a lot of time making changes. So, I am seeking your guidance.

I have been interested in US student debt for several years for many reasons. One is the growing number of people with student debt and their problems with repayment. Another is the frequent articles in the media sensationalizing the risks of the size of the student debt.

As a professional economist, my approach is to understand the foundation of a problem -- separate the facts from the hype -- and use data-based analysis to build a solid understanding. Toward this end, I've had 13 groups of Senior economics students at a major US state university researching the problem for a semester. I'd like to share our findings. Each project is on a specific topic such as the relationship between student debt and home ownership as well as information about the types of loans and the types of repayment plans.

So that you can better evaluate the sort of contribution I intend, I made a few small changes to the existing copy. I changed the lead-in paragraph to a more analytical definition of student debt. I added a table of the number of borrowers by the amount of debt owed. That was moved farther down the article because it was judged inappropriate for introductory information. I have not yet learned how to format the text within the table, but I intend to center the numbers in the second and subsequent columns. I think I added a little more text which you can find using the talk page. It was either moved to a location I cannot find or it was deleted. I have to check out someone correcting my typos. If I made them, I am sorry. It might have been that I failed to capitalize the words "million" and "trillion" since I do not consider them to fall under any of the usual rules of capitalization. I see that someone corrected grammar and typos. Could you tell me how to find those changes, please?

There are a few fundamental changes I would make if I could work on this page. First, there is a lot of inflammatory language. Having a heading of "Student Debt Mess" is inappropriate. The original introduction seems to me to focus on the problems of repaying student debt with special emphasis on the problems of the students who do not complete their education. The catch-phrase I use is that there is only one thing worse than graduating with a lot of debt and that is not graduating with a lot of debt. However, I do not consider repayment to be the appropriate focus of the introduction.

I think the whole article needs to be restructured. The History section is overly long. To my thinking, the History section should have two components. One is the US programs that created student loans. I can write that in two paragraphs. The second component is some data on the level of loans each year (total and average per student) and the level of student debt (total and average per student).

I would add a major section that would explain what loan programs are currently available and what repayment programs are on offer.

Then I think we need a section on the status of repayment. According to the Federal Reserve, only 37% of students are current on their payments and have a lower balance than in the previous month. In additional 47% are making payments but those payments are less than the amount of interest accrued in the previous month. The remaining borrowers are at least 90 days late on their payments. This means that only about 3 in 8 borrowers are on track to repay their loans and that 5 in 8 are going deeper into debt each month.

Then we might consider adding some information about who owes the debt by demographic categories and information on the implication of the debt such as the effect on home ownership and other borrowing. There are some changes to policy being discussed but since these have not been decided, my students and I have not studied them. I would suggest we hold off on that until changes are finalized.

There are some important things I am not prepared to cover. One is the problems facing students who do not graduate. I have opinions but not facts on that matter. Similarly, I have strong opinions o n the amount of debt students borrow as I believe a fair bit funds life-style debt (spring-break cruises, daily cups of Starbucks, etc.) and that leads me to strongly oppose an across-the-board debt forgiveness program. I have been a professor for the past 13 years so my observations are first-hand rather than based on survey data or other unbiased sources. I have also not looked into the effect of working while going to school. I have, over the years, had students who worked full time while attempting to complete their degree in four years. With a fixed number of hours in a week, it seems likely that they shorted themselves on their education, but that is a personal choice. My other strong belief is that paying off debt is a question of priorities. My students who have paid back $25,000 - $30,000 in three years are the ones who put that at the top of the list and sacrificed other spending to become debt-free. Students who prioritize a life style over debt repayment have debt following them for many years, as indicated by the note I added about the student debt held by people in Congress. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, among others, chose a tony apartment in Georgetown over a lower-cost apartment and paying down her debt. For many, debt repayment is a choice.

My students have taken care to look at some of the demographics of student debt, perhaps mixing that with student loans (one-year's borrowing). Final papers are due on April 25 so I am not yet sure how much of their work will be worthy of contributing, but we should at least be able to include more detailed information on the different loan programs (Direct Subsidized, Direct Unsubsidized, PLUS, private, etc.) and on the different repayment programs. I know the repayment group looked at four common types of loans and used standard assumptions ($30,000 of debt, a given interest rate) and analyzed how much a borrower would repay under these programs. I also have a group looking at the hot new employment benefit -- employers who contribute to student debt repayment.

Then there are some bigger issues. This article has very little information about student debt in foreign countries. I am not interested in researching foreign programs. I leave it to your judgement how to handle this topic in light of the large amount of information on US student debt that I am planning to add. The other issue is that if I make changes here, we need to consider what that means for related pages, particularly US Student Loans. On a small but annoying note. It appears that Wikipedia uses only one space at the end of a paragraph in keeping with common media practice today. I find this more difficult to scan and since most people scan instead of read, you are doing your readers a disservice. You might note that the Mueller Report used two spaces at the end of the sentence. I will, however, yield to your standard in the text I submit.

I do not plan to make any additional changes until we can agree on what is worthwhile. Thanks, Carol — Preceding unsigned comment added by Drcswartz (talk • contribs) 13:09, 20 April 2019 (UTC)


 * If you are going to propose major edits, it may be easiest if you first copy the existing article into a sandbox, make the changes to that copy, and then let us know about those changes here in Talk so we can look at your sandbox copy and discuss it. That would give you free reign to make major changes without immediately changing the live article.
 * Of course, you're always welcome to just make the changes immediately, but I find that it's often best to be a little bit cautious when making major edits that haven't yet been discussed or workshopped. Either way, welcome aboard and thanks for volunteering to help with this article! ElKevbo (talk) 13:49, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Every time I hear from someone at Wikipedia, I feel more encouraged and less alone. Thank you. I am familiar with the idea of a sandbox and I will do my work there. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Drcswartz (talk • contribs) 14:17, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 21:36, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
 * U.S. Student Loan Debt Distribution Q4 2012.png

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