How long did it take you to pay off your college debt?

Why are student's college debt increasing as time goes on?

• Yesterday afternoon, my dad was telling me about how he was $2,500 hundred dollars in debt after graduating college. $2,500!!!!! - He also went to a very good school... and on top of that, he still had his own apartment and car - he was able to pay off his debt really fast. Students that go to college now are, on average, $40,000, $50,000, $60,000 dollars in debt.. it's disgusting. We don't even get to live before we're slaves to debt. Why has college debt increased so ******* much over such a short period of time? Is it because the government decided to get involved with school loans? It makes no sense... college is stressful enough - it's like after we graduate from this already stressful life we only move on to an even more stressful life of just basically working to pay off this ****. I don't mean to be ungrateful, I've had a good education and all. But the education I received is NOTHING near as much as I'm paying for it. I don't *really* learn anything in school. It's more like I remember it for a short period of time, regurgitate it, and forget it by next semester... I take so many classes that are irrelevant to my major.. it seems like college is becoming more and more of a scam.. and I feel like it's too late to leave college since I just finished up my third year... I feel like while my parents are helping me now, they're eventually gonna leave me on my own. I'm gonna be neck deep in college debt and I was never really aware of how serious the situation was until recently... I know that ALOT of other college students are in the same boat as I am. I hear my peers complaining about an talking about it all the time... I feel like one day college students will say enough is enough. They'll simply refuse to pay off their loans. It's too ******* much and it's unbelievably unrealistic how much we have to pay off. I feel like I'm being treated like a slave. I want to go to college to be able to work and PAY MYSELF for the hard work I've done. I don't want to bust my *** off through stressful college only to work my entire life paying that money off to someone else. It's not fair. I really feel like one day people will literally be fed up with it and just refuse to pay it anymore. Especially with problems like a crashing economy, inflation issues, virtually no job market... More and more people are paying for school expecting a job, and less and less jobs are showing up... If worst comes to worst, though. I've decided I'm going to flee the country and move to some remote location in either Asia or Africa - Europe is too much of a hot spot and I'm likely to be found there. The funny thing? The I'm literally 100% serious about the above scenario. Some advice, please? Suggestions? Thoughts? Anything?!

• Answer:

  Yes, the cost of college has gone up far more than most other expenses in the last 40 years. But it does give you the benefit of a college degree that will make you far more employable than most high school students. On the other hand, you had choices when you applied to college. You could have chosen community college for two years, chosen a state university over a private school, or gone to school part time and worked a job while you got your education -- as many students do. Parents try to warn their kids about taking on excessive amounts of loan debt, but all the students think about is, "I want to go off to school like my friends and have a good time." There is SO much information out there on the Internet -- why don't high school students take advantage of that and do some research ahead of time?