By Cory Weinberg. Student-loan borrowers now owe the federal government more than $1-trillion for the first time, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced on Wednesday.
The swelling federal student-loan debt now sits at $1.2-trillion, the bureau estimated. The country passed the milestone with a fitting backdrop: the debate in Congress over student-loan interest rates. Rates for new borrowers of federally subsidized loans doubled, to 6.8 percent, on July 1, with Democrats and Republicans sparring, before and since, over the best way to set future rates. Read more...

By Jonathan Weisman. A tentative agreement to overhaul the federal student loan program was close to collapsing on Thursday night after the Congressional Budget Office said the proposal would cost the Treasury $22 billion over 10 years, according to aides familiar with the discussions.
Negotiators from both parties started the day with high hopes that a deal could be struck next week to restore lower student loan rates — but only after Senate Democrats retreated on their position that subsidized loan rates be locked in for at least another year and not subjected to market forces. Read more...

By Patricia Baeten. The Senate adjourned for the July 4 recess on Thursday, but failed to keep interest rates on Stafford loans at the current 3.4 percent rate. The federally subsidized loans are set to expire on July 1, after which the interest rate cap will rise to 6.8 percent. Congress ignores students and dismisses education as unimportant. Sallie Mae is a former government-sponsored enterprise that was fully privatized in 2004 and now trades publicly as SLM Corp. Sallie Mae the private lender that has been generating enormous profits thanks to soaring student debt and the climbing cost of education. Since the privatization of Sallie Mae, on average the annual cost of education at public schools has risen 57 percent since 2005 to nearly $18,000, according to College Board figures Sallie Mae cites in its latest quarterly pitch to investors. Students at private schools are paying more than $39,000, or nearly 44 percent more than they did in 2005. Read more...

By Colleen Goko. STUDENT debt is exploding amid revelations that South African university students can legally acquire credit cards as long as they can prove that they receive a steady income of as little as R200 a month from a parent or a guardian.
A recent youth spending report by Student Village and Unisa found that student debt has more than doubled in the past three years, with 43% of students admitting to owning a credit card in the 2012 survey, compared to 9.5% in 2010. Read more...

By Ben Miller. After Congress failed to reach a deal last week, the interest rate on new subsidized Stafford loans officially doubled from 3.4 to 6.8 percent on Monday. Though there's speculation that Congress may vote on a retroactive change next week, there still appears to be a big divide between those arguing for tying loans to market rates and those arguing for another temporary extension of the 3.4 percent rate. So we think it's time to explore some more creative solutions to the Game of Loans problem. Below are some suggestions, but feel free to offer your own in the comments. Read more...

Par Lucie Robequain. Le taux des prêts accordés aux étudiants américains sous condition de ressources devrait doubler au 1 er juillet. La dette étudiante dépasse 1.000 milliards de dollars.
Washington aime le suspense: à dix jours de l’échéance, les parlementaires américains ne savent toujours pas s’ils doubleront le taux des prêts étudiants accordés par le gouvernement sous condition de ressources. Si aucune loi n’est adoptée avant le 1er juillet, ce taux passera de 3,4% à 6,8% à la rentrée universitaire. L’enjeu est évidemment crucial pour les 7 millions de jeunes qui en bénéficient. Il alimente aussi un débat de fond parmi les économistes.
La dette étudiante peut-elle s’envoler sans pénaliser la croissance américaine? Après l’effondrement des emprunts hypothécaires, qui a alimenté la crise financière de 2008, certains experts n’hésitent pas à évoquer la perspective d’une nouvelle bulle financière. Suite de l'article...