Massive Student Loan Debt Weighs Heavily on Young Couple
15 April 2012
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“Danielle Jokela, who graduated in 2007 with a bachelor’s degree in interior design from Harrington College of Design in Chicago, still hasn’t found a job in her field. She and her husband fear losing their condo, she said, because she owes more than $98,000 on 16 government and private student loans,” the Chicago Tribune reports. “The 32-year-old Rogers Park resident was among those testifying at a Senate hearing in support of legislation that would allow students who borrowed from private lenders for their education to wipe out that debt in bankruptcy proceedings.”
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I too am a Harrington College of Design graduate with about $192,000 in student loan debt. I didn’t have a family that was able to explain or understand the amount of debt I was taking on and I placed all of my trust in the loan officers at Harrington. With the stories of student’s making $50-80k right after graduation, surely I could easily pay off my debts (whatever those may be…I was never told each time I signed my life away on the dotted line). I was also told to never perform a job for less than $50 an hour…how jaded I was. Why the loan officers didn’t explain to me what my payments were and what the average salary was of a recent graduate, I have no idea. Isn’t that their job? I once was in the financial aid department when a student was being “guided” by telling them ‘you can borrow amount A, and just get by; or you can borrow amount B and buy a lot of shoes’. I will never forget that. This HAS to stop, how do you expect most people who are in their late teens or early 20′s to make decisions such as this without being truly educated? It’s irresponsible.