An article in the New York Times discusses the plight of low-income women who attended various beauty schools that have since been shutdown for corruption. This case will hopefully generate interest in examining all the schools that collect student loan money, but fail to provide students with value for their debt.
Herman De Jesus, a senior program associate for the New Economy Project, an advocacy organization, said that though the three beauty schools had long been closed, other trade schools continued to prey on students.
“Schools are targeting low-income people and people of color for the sole purpose of drawing down large sums of federal aid dollars,” Mr. De Jesus said. The schools “have no intention of providing them with a quality education.”
Apt. 11d 
College confidential currently has several threads in which parents are “asking for money from the student loans.” (reported by the kids, and hence the quotes). In one case, a parent is asking for 4000 dollars. I hate it when I find myself paying attention to reports like that one, because I feel like a reaganite complaining about welfare queens. But, I think I really do need to know more about the prevalence. Could be that I’d recognize that all systems have unintended consequences, and be willing to live with them, or to see the symptom as indicating another problem we need to address (the lack of other resources).
But, non-dischargeable student debt can’t be the answer to the problem of poor (and not just the poor student, but the poor in general). I think student debt for education as a solution is being pushed by a subclass of the elite, for whom education was the path out of poverty (and, it was for many of us — for all of my children’s grandparents, and, for me, certainly a path to a better economic future). But, I don’t think it works that way for everyone, that it’s a one size fits all solution that leaves some worse off.
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