The Loan

He graduated in 2009. The degree cost $87,000. He’s paid $94,000 so far. He still owes $71,000.

Not a typo. He’s paid more than the original amount and the balance went up. Interest accrued while he was in school. Capitalized when he graduated. Compounded while he was making minimum payments.

The institution that sold him the degree has a $2 billion endowment.

He was seventeen when he signed. Couldn’t rent a car, couldn’t buy a beer, couldn’t sign a lease. But he could commit to $87,000 of non-dischargeable debt that would follow him until it was paid or he was dead. A bankruptcy judge can clear a gambling debt, a medical debt, a business loan. But not this. Congress made sure of that.

He works in the field he studied. Makes decent money. Not what the brochure promised — the brochure had median salaries that included the three people per class who went to Goldman Sachs. After rent, after the loan payment, after insurance, he has about $400 a month for everything else. He’s thirty-four.

His parents told him the degree was the way. Their parents told them. The guidance counselor, the admissions office, the financial aid officer who explained the loan documents with the warmth of a flight attendant demonstrating the seatbelt — everyone confirmed it.

The institution didn’t lie. The brochure didn’t technically lie. Everything was accurate the way a nutrition label on a candy bar is accurate. All the information was there. The conclusion you were supposed to draw was not.

He’ll finish paying when he’s fifty-one. The degree will be forty years old. And the next seventeen-year-old will sign the same document because the institution that sells the dream is also the one that defines what dreaming costs.