There is an old saying that nothing in life is certain except death and taxes.
You can add something else to that list: Student loan payments.
For generations, we have been told the surest path to success was to go to college and get a good job. And that's pretty much been true. But the price of higher education keeps going up and wages have not kept pace for many in the middle class. That makes a college degree less and less affordable.
There are scholarships and grants, but not enough to go around and often even that aid is not enough to pay for college. So many turn to loans.
The average 2018 graduate will leave school with about $38,000 in debt and spend about 21 years paying it off. Right now. about 44 million owe $1.48 trillion in student loans-$600 billion more than total U.S. credit card debt.
Such debt is repaid after college when students settle into secure employment. But another thing that hasn't kept up with the price of a degree is the availability of higher-paying jobs. When even college grads are just scraping by, it's no surprise that about 11 percent are in default on their student loan payments.
That's a big problem.
Those behind in their student loans find it almost impossible to get out from under the burden. For the most part, students loans cannot be discharged through bankruptcy like most other debts and even negotiating a payment plan can be very difficult. In the meantime, interest and sometimes huge penalties keep the balance growing.
It gets worse. In some states like Texas, defaulting on a student loan can make you ineligible for a state license to practice your profession. That means you can get a nursing degree and not be allowed work as a nurse or spend four years on your teaching degree and not be allowed in the classroom. That makes it even more difficult to repay your debt.
President Donald Trump is considering making it easier to discharge student loan debt through bankruptcy. That's one step.
But most students want to repay. They just want more flexibility, more consideration of their current financial situation. The student loan system itself just hasn't kept up with rising costs and changing times.
This is not some potential problem. It's a very real crisis in the daily lives of millions of Americans. And it's only going to get worse unless those with the power to reform the student loan program-Congress and state governments-work together to put people ahead of dollars.