On Student Loans

I agree with this article on student loans. Politically speaking, "student loan relief" is a bit cheesy - easy to talk about, no down side, very little realized effect. The fact is, student loans tend to be low interest and very flexible about pay back. And yes, they are overwhelmingly held by middle and upper middle class people. Are these the types of folks who need relief when it comes to how to spend government resources?

But his second point is also true - loans, especially professional school loans, can be crippling to people trying to work in a profession that doesn't pay - like writing or filmmaking. Lawyers tend to have more debt (I think) than film school grads, which often forces them to take jobs reading contracts in big lame firms for two years.

Anyway, I assume people taking professional school loans are smart enough to realize they will need to be paying them back and calculate it into their choices when deciding upon going to school. Plus, I don't hear about too many with professional degrees starving and although I feel sympathy for someone who wants to be a writer or teacher or filmmaker, but they are "stuck" working as a lawyer because of loans - I don't feel MORE sorry for them than say, a single mother trying to raise kids without a college education.

No one held a gun to their heads and said: "Go to law school."