Student loans leave crushing burden

Couldn't resist posting this one, it hits close to home: Americans now owe more on their student loans than they do on their credit cards — a debt fast approaching $1 trillion with no end in sight.

A quote: "Alan Collinge, an activist and author, who drew on his own student loan default to found the group StudentLoanJustice.org, says the student loan crisis is potentially far worse than the mortgage crisis.

"A defaulted home mortgage borrower — and don't get me wrong, it's a horrible outcome — they walk away from their house wearing a barrel and not much else," he said. "In the case of student loans, there is no walking away."
Unlike most other forms of debt, student loans carry almost no consumer protections and little ability to refinance. By law, they can't be wiped out in bankruptcy. Those laws were passed in response to the last student loan crisis in the 1980s. But Collinge believes it created a system he calls predatory.
"These powers would make a mobster envious," he said.
If you default on a student loan today, you could lose everything. "