For many of the 43 million Americans weighed down by student loan debt, making their monthly payments is a major drag on their lives. About a third of undergraduates going for a bachelor's degree are either dropping out or taking more than six years to graduate, which means that lots of people carrying student debt don't even have a degree. Others are finding that what they learned in college doesn't even help them get a job.
Federal student loan debt hit $1.6 trillion last year. This is a major problem for people in their 20s and 30s. But the federal government simply wiping their debt clean is just about the stupidest way to address it.
