[jyl]

I am not sure about that. The student debt outstanding is large ($1TR) but is also very unbalanced. 75% of students owe $28K or less, which strikes me as a fairly manageable amount of debt considering the rate, period, and deferment options. 25% owe more and of those, 4% owe more than $100K. I'd be interested in knowing how many of those are MD, MBA, JD students and how many are the "barista with a French Lit degree."

The average student debt balance is $24K.

I'm not disagreeing that excessive student loan debt is a bad thing, by the way.

Just looked it up - Stafford loan rate is 3.86% for undergraduates. So interest on $25K would be $1K/yr. But private student loans are different.