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Crushing Student Debt is Destroying America’s Future // Kim Iversen
Kim Iversen | Trusted Newsmaker
China Is Winning Because We’re Screwing Our Kids With Debt
The viral wake-up call
A clip blew up this week: a young woman realizing she’s been paying $1,500 a month for two years on a student loan with a 17% interest rate—and she now owes more than when she started. That’s not “adulting,” that’s a legalized shakedown. The internet’s hot take? “Just don’t go to college.” That knee-jerk answer is lazy as hell and dangerously shortsighted. If we keep telling our kids to skip higher education because banks are running a casino on their backs, we’re handing the future to countries that actually invest in brains. Yes, I’m looking at you, China and India.
The real villain: a system designed to balloon balances
Student debt in the U.S. isn’t just expensive—it’s engineered to metastasize. Loans get stretched, interest piles up while grads are stuck on income-driven plans earning peanuts, and by the time they can finally pay real money, the balance has doubled like a gremlin fed after midnight. The woman in the video? She’s poured in $36,000 and still stares down roughly $90,000. That isn’t “personal responsibility.” That’s predatory design pretending to be public policy. Stop blaming kids for stepping into a trap we built and then labeled “opportunity.”
“Don’t go to college” is a dumb fix
Telling a whole generation to dodge college because financing is rotten is like telling people to stop eating because groceries are overpriced. Education is a national power move—on par with manufacturing, energy, and defense. If we hollow out our talent pipeline, we won’t have homegrown engineers, doctors, or researchers. We’ll have help-wanted signs and H-1B lotteries while rivals sprint ahead. And spare me the “just get a high-paying job” line—entry-level roles don’t pay like senior management, and you don’t spawn as a VP after graduation. You grind, you climb, and the system should not booby-trap those years with compounding interest that eats your future. That’s not tough love; that’s financial sandpaper on a fresh wound.
Yes to trades. Yes to college. Yes to a plan.
This isn’t trades vs. university. Trade school is college, too—just a different lane. We need welders and wind-techs, nurses and network architects, philosophers who turn into attorneys, and designers who make tech usable. A sane country funds multiple paths and aligns the price tag with the payoff. The real question isn’t “Should you go?” It’s “What’s your plan to make the credential produce?” And then, crucially: “Does the financing support that plan instead of detonating it?” If a program’s ROI stinks, either the price drops or the terms change. That’s grown-up economics, not a vibes-based guillotine for ambition.
How we stop the bleeding (without partisan BS)
— Cap or slash interest on federal student loans to near-zero while borrowers are on income-driven repayment. If your required payment can’t even cover interest, then the interest needs to chill the hell out. Ballooning balances are policy failure, not a math lesson.
— Kill perverse incentives for servicers to profit off negative amortization. If a loan is government-backed, taxpayers shouldn’t underwrite compound-interest carnage so a middleman can skim.
— Radical price transparency by program: median starting salary, five-year earnings, typical time to stable employment, and realistic monthly payments across scenarios—before anyone borrows a dime. If schools can’t justify the sticker, they adjust or they lose enrollments. Simple as that.
— Grace with purpose: automatic interest suppression during apprenticeships, internships, residencies, and other public-benefit training phases. We already subsidize what we value; start valuing American talent.
Stop blaming the borrower
Most grads start around $25–$30K and climb over 5–15 years. Punishing the launch phase with compound interest is like taxing a seed before it sprouts. We should design financing that keeps the principal stable while people ramp. If you borrow $35K and pay on time, you shouldn’t end up cutting an $80K check over the life of the loan. That’s not education finance; that’s a slow-motion mugging with paperwork.
Eyes on the prize
Here’s the blunt truth: if we keep memeing “college is a scam” instead of fixing the scammy financing, we’ll choose to be dumber, poorer, and dependent on imports for our brains. That’s not freedom, that’s forfeiture. Fix the incentives, end the balance-balloon circus, and invest in Americans—blue collar and white collar—so we’re competing with China, not handing them the trophy and a damn victory parade.
Bottom line
Education is a public good; predatory interest is a public hazard. Kill the hazard, keep the good, and let the next generation build without a debt bomb strapped to their futures. That’s how you win the century. No spin, no team jerseys—just common-sense arithmetic and a little courage.
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