Mary Clare Amselem:
“…Americans have long suspected that, for many, a college degree simply isn’t worth the price.
American taxpayers – two-thirds of whom do not have a college degree – are likewise increasingly skeptical of the notion that they should pay off loans that someone else made the decision to take out.
With recently published College Scorecard data, American students and taxpayers have more reason than ever to reject the left’s “college for all” agenda.
The College Scorecard recently released program-level data on individual schools. Students can now go online and see how much debt the average student graduates with in a certain degree program, along with expected starting salaries.
The results indicate that choosing a major matters immensely, especially when relying on federal student loans to finance one’s education.
According to The Wall Street Journal, 15 percent of programs graduate students who carry more federal student loan debt than their annual income.
Interestingly, graduate programs – which are generally perceived to be good investments – are some of the worst offenders.
Students who graduate from the University of Miami Law School, for example, hold a median total debt of $150,896, but earn a starting salary of just $52,100. Even more problematic, students who obtain a master’s degree from New York University in film/video and photographic arts graduate with a median total debt of a whopping $168,568, but earn a median starting salary of $29,600.
Those findings are particularly concerning, considering that there is virtually no cap on how much students can borrow for graduate school under the PLUS loan program…”