Beth Akers and Josh Mitchell, authors of books on college debt, join FutureU Hosts Jeff Selingo and Michael B. Horn to discuss the next steps for student loans as the Covid-19 pause in payments is lifted in January.
Mitchell, a Wall Street Journal reporter who wrote The Debt Trap, notes the rate of students defaulting on loans. “If you look at the delinquency rate, according to the New York Fed, it’s 20 to 25 percent,” he said. “That’s double what the rate was for people who were falling behind on their mortgages in the housing crisis.”
Akers, author of Making College Pay, is more skeptical. ““I hate that we call this a crisis…Policymakers are creating a solution to this problem that doesn’t really exist…. We’re scaring people away from borrowing, when it could actually be in their best interest to do so.”