The indebted ones

摘要

STUDENT loans are based on a simple idea: that a graduate's future flow of earnings will more than cover the costs of doing a degree. But with unemployment rates in parts of the rich world at post-war highs, that may no longer hold true for many people. The consequences will be felt by everybody. All over the world student indebtedness is causing problems—witness this month's violent protests in Chile (see page 43). In Britain, according to a recent parliamentary report, rising university fees mean that student debt is likely to treble to £70 billion by 2015. But, partly because higher education there is so expensive, the scale of the problem is far greater in America. When the next official estimates of outstanding student debt there are published, it is expected to be close to $1 trillion, higher than credit-card borrowing (see page 73). Credit quality in other classes of consumer debt has been improving; delinquency rates on student loans are rising.