One of the more pernicious assumptions around student debt is that most people with massive student debt also have a degree that would allow them to earn enough to settle the debt. The image of a young doctor in residency with high student debt is so common that many people will bring up earning potential when discussing their objections to student debt cancellation.
Unfortunately, quite a lot of student debt is held by people with comparatively low earning potential. Some of it was done as a clear scam on students, like with ITT Tech, something that the Biden administration took steps to address by canceling $3.9 Billion for 208,000 borrowers. But plenty of the debt is a slightly subtler scam, done by theoretically more high-minded institutions.
Masters programs have become a primary way that almost every university seeks to make more money, even at elite institutions like the Ivy’s. Often the cost is high regardless of whether the field has a high earning potential or not. In some ways the goal can be seen as admirable, providing a way for students to study whatever they feel curious about, but it really starts to feel predatory when we analyze the scale.
It isn’t only the elite universities that have this problem, as this article states, it is almost all private, non-profit universities. The system is not dissimilar to that which ITT Tech used, funneling low income students into any program, walking them through the process of applying for loans (sometimes federal, sometimes private) and then saddling them with the debt when they walked out the door.
For the most part, the specifics are not as sullied as the ITT Tech scandal. There is less hyper aggressive recruiting, less lying about job placement (although those numbers are always massage-able) and no other institution that has been accused of signing students up for loans without their knowledge, although this too might be happening more than is widely publicized because the government has a process to discharge debt accrued in this way. In general ITT Tech, as a for profit educational institution, was doing things in the most extreme and unethical way. But the non-profit privates are doing something similar, but not as egregious. As we recently reported, this is the group of schools that tend to command the top levels of public trust, and in the search for higher revenues, they have been the primary creators of these high debt, low earning potential degrees.

Those who choose fully public schools are far less likely to incur the high debt to earnings ratio found at private schools for programs in areas like social work. Public schools, when you have in-state tuition, tend to cost half of what private schools cost with almost no difference in earnings.

More Stories
Blackboard’s LMS marketshare shrinks for another year as Canvas’ dominance grows
In recent years, the learning management industry has grown rapidly as technology and innovations continue to transform the way that...
3 Ways ChatGPT can help teachers and 5 reasons it won’t replace them
Ever since ChatGPT came on the scene there have been a lot of hysterical articles detailing why education will never...
ChatGPT and the Future of Education at FETC
The FETC conference is going on right now in New Orleans and sadly, the conference has a paltry online offering....
44% of Graduates Regret their College Majors
Although we have talked about the problems with higher education, there is no question that a college degree is becoming...
HMH is buying NWEA: The giants keep getting giant-er
There is further consolidation in the EdTech industry as a publishing giant, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, is buying the Oregon-based assessment...
Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona: Teacher base pay should be $100k
“Teachers deserve a fair wage” is a sound bite as old as public education and the underspending that accompanies it....