America, Welcome to the Poorhouse: What You Must Do to Protect Your Financial Future and the Reform We Need

Chapter 8The Fix: Grants, Government Loans, and Colleges That Are Free

My Dad, who normally didn’t mind spending money, was appalled when I was accepted to Syracuse University in 1966 because the bill would be a whopping $3,000 a year—compared to about $50,000 now! He was annoyed that he had to take out a home equity loan to pay for my brother’s and my education—probably because scholarships paid for a big chunk of my Dad’s bill at the University of Toronto, where he went to college when his family moved back to Canada. But at least Dad made a decent enough salary as a pension actuary to afford to repay the loan for my education. If I had to depend on my salary as a journalist to repay a student loan, I’d probably still be paying the ...