Author- Allan Collinge
Summary- This book is a very interesting book which covers a wide range of topics and makes you see how big of a problem the debt crisis in America is. This book covers the history of student loans, the rise of Sallie Mae, and how
universities have profited at the expense of students. The book also includes
interesting stories from people across the country about how
both nonprofit and for-profit student loan companies have affected their lives and how this problem is growing at an alarming rate.
Quotes: "U.S. citizens borrow close to ninety billion dollars a year in order to attend college"
"Today, about two-thirds of college students require loans to make it through, an the typical undergraduate borrower leaves school with more than twenty thousand dollars in student loan debt"
"shifting the financial burden of attending college from the government to the students"
"shift away from traditional funding of institutions of higher learning and toward student aid is a primary cause for the spiraling cost of college that we see today"
"No one stops these people and they stop at nothing to extort millions from the public"
"Has loan payments that were substantially more than my monthly salary. A family just didn't seem possible"
"When Sallie Mae took over the loans, we were hopeful that they would have a student friendly program for repayment. Instead we found that the loans were being run by loan sharks"
"Sallie Mae employee created false records indicating that borrowers had been contacted or that reasonable attempts to contact the borrowers had been made when no such events had occurred"
Key terms:
defaulted on a loan- means that you are unable to pay back your loan, negative consequences such as penalties and late fees which make loan much higher than it initially was
accrued interest- interest that has accumulated over time
Works Cited- Collinge, Alan. The Student Loan Scam. Boston: Beacon Press Books, 2009
