According to a newreport out of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the student loan debt situation has gotten worse. The number of people who owe over $100,000 in student debt has quadrupled over the last 10 years.
Paul Reville, former Secretary of Education of Massachusetts, told Boston Public Radio that the price escalation that these institutions are engaged in, particularly public institutions, is shifting more of the burden on to the family because public funding has slipped. "That debt load has become unsustainable. Now we have people who are just shying away from going into higher education because it's simply too expensive. This is happening at the very time when we need more skilled workers."
Reville says online education is one way to avoid this kind of crushing debt. He also sees New York's free tuition plan as a step in the right direction. "I think we've got to move toward some form of tuition relief for students going forward because this is unsustainable."
Paul Reville is a professor at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education where he also runs the Education Redesign Lab. He is the former Secretary of Education of Massachusetts. To hear his full conversation, which covered a range of education issues, click on the audio player above.
