The Long Road to Solvency

The outstanding debt held in student loans, estimated at over one trillion dollars, is now the second largest class of debt held by consumers — second only to home mortgages. The dangers posed by this debt may not be as great as the mortgage debt and its role in the ensuing financial system crash of 2008. But it is consequential for the economy, not to mention it’s devastating personal effects.  You can read about the dimensions and find the relevant data here.

While this news isn’t “buried,” in the sense I’ve been using the term here in Page Seven, it does not receive the attention it deserves by economists or business writers as a major factor in the sluggish recovery, or in the prospects for long term growth. Nor is it prominent in the scripts and talking points of the two major ideological…