Monday, August 30, 2010

$848,028,384,295: Student Loan Debt Clock

Mark Kantrowitz of Fin.aid has set up a clock, much like the U.S. Debt Clock near Times Square in Manhattan, measuring the amount of private and public student loans piling on the back of young Americans.
This clever feature "takes into account both new loans being made and old loans being paid off, which decrease the total amount of debt outstanding. The reason the clock grows by a couple thousand dollars per second is simple: Current students are borrowing money much faster than former students are paying it back."
Scary, right?  I'm hoping that the digital nonsensical clock on the side of the former Virgin Megastore in Manhattan can be used to publicly display the Student Loan Clock.  Since Virgin closed, I'm sure it's available.
Look!  It's perfect!  And it has space for growth.  After all, "in 2010, Kantrowitz estimates that the government will make about $100 billion in federal loans -- and receive just $22 billion in principal payments, leading to a net increase of $78 billion per year. That doesn't even include private loans."
So, it will need to be a big clock, a really big clock.

Thanks for the tip, friend!

11 comments:

  1. At the end of the film Gladiator, by the way horribly horribly inaccurate in terms of history on so many levels, Maximus (who is really an incarnation of Cincinnatus) dies but kills the "evil" emperor Commodus (not how any of that happened) in the gladiator arena.

    Marcus Aurelius' daughter says to the crowd "there was a dream that was Rome" which apparently was an allusion to the promise of the empire returning to being a republic rather than a tyrannical empire (it never was nor did it ever really try to be a true republic although given the time period I guess it was the closest thing to one besides the Greek city states). I only mention it because Americans seem to be so fond of making Roman analogies, and I guess nowadays we could say we're entering a phase of decline and fall (the original historical theory behind that infamous phrase was that Rome eroded from the inside before it was crumbled because of a loss of virtue amongst its citizens as their morals slowly decayed and they became decadent and self involved...wait a second that's not like America at all...Jersey Shore! Fist Pump that Beat Bitches!)

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  2. Angel et al.,

    Last night, I was hanging out with some friends. Pretty much everyone in the group was late 20s-early 30s. The subject of student loans came up. I mentioned the student loan debt clock.

    One guy works as a VP in some obscure department of Sallie Mae. He mentioned, "It's great for me. These things can't be written off." He then went on to state that Sallie Mae would be purchasing some of this debt, in the amount of $80 billion or so.

    At least, that is their target. Apparently, a few of the "loan service providers", i.e. filthy, thieving cockroaches, will be going under or otherwise selling their debt to other "service providers" in the next several months. UHEAA, Utah Higher Education Assistance Authority and PHEAA, Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Authority are in trouble, and Sallie Mae, sweetheart that she is, will be looking to take on those accounts.

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  3. http://www.law.duke.edu/admis/classprofile

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  4. What happened to Class of 2010? ha.

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  5. this is where I count myself very lucky, esp since I decided not to got to law school this year (and possibly not at all - really really like my new job btw) But on facebook a lot of my friends are starting to talk openly about student loans, esp sallie mae.

    I just looked at Duke's class profile site, the types of practice equals 101% (if you don't include academia then its 100 but I'm assuming they include it since it is listed) and I highly doubt, even for Duke, that 100% of the 2009 class was employed after 9 months. I have a friend at Duke and I think she is a 3L this year. I'm half tempted to email her and ask if she knows anyone from 2009 class that isn't employed, same with 2010's class.

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  6. Another good point. I thought their stats were so bogus, that I just posted a new post about it. LIARS! I hate irresponsible industries. Duke is right up there with BP to me.

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  7. Angel, more student loan data.

    http://consumerist.com/2010/09/when-will-the-college-tuition-bubble-burst.html

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