DIFF 2014: EduCATION: A Short Documentary on the Student Debt Crisis

As my third child prepares to graduate from college (all three debt free due to scholarships, thank goodness), the majority of college students are drowning in debt. The question addressed in this mini-doc, written and directed by David Esfeh is “ Is incurring heavy debt worth the cost of a college education?” Banks can get loans for ¾ of a percent while our students are paying 7 percent or more on their loans. So why are our banks allowed to make money while our country’s future professionals are drowning?

The doc is chock full of statistics, gloom and doom and it is time for our country to wake up and smell the coffee. This is a current impending crisis (interest rates doubling) and a long term crisis (relieving the next generation from a great burden of debt). The cost of higher education is discouraging many of our most promising students from pursing an undergraduate or graduate degree. 53 percent of recent college graduates are unemployed or underemployed. 85 percent of recent graduates, in the last four years, have moved home They are not buying houses or starting businesses, and not contributing to or growing the economy. In 10 years’ time, student debt has quadrupled from 250 billion to 1 trillion. And in this day, anyone can get the loans while colleges have no incentive to keep costs down and have skyrocketed since 2002. I have personally seen a year’s expenses at a state college in Texas go from $13,750 in 2003 to $22, 500 in 2010. We are educating students for jobs that no longer exist and fewer middle class jobs exist. The wages are stagnant and have been for 20 years. Another statistic listed is that since 1980, the average income has increased 8 percent while college costs have increased 240 percent. The student loan debt is a bubble preparing to burst for half of a student debtors are deferred delinquent of in default. It is my personal feeling that each and every parent preparing to send a child to college, in the next 5-7 years, view this documentary to try to prepare themselves and their students for the realities they face. Few solutions are offered here but it is intended as a giant wake up call to the financial crisis our young people are facing.
(Review by Cheryl Wurtz)