"We always want to blame Wall Street for everything, but if you believe in the student loan crisis, this is one case where you really cannot. Unfortunately, more than 90% of [the outstanding student debt] was administered by the federal student loan program... We've encouraged people to borrow without being a critical and careful consumer, so no one's making money off the backs of these students other than the Department of Education, and in fact they're not. The program loses a lot of money each year."
-- Beth Akers
For today's Conversation, meet UAlbany graduate and economist Beth Akers, author of Making College Pay: An Economist Explains How to Make a Smart Bet on Higher Education and co-author of Game of Loans: The Rhetoric and Reality of Student Debt.
In Making College Pay, Beth explains why college is still a smart investment and reveals how to stack the odds in your favor by employing strategic decision-making. She cuts through the romanticism we often attach to college decision-making and teaches the reader how to make decisions that are grounded in data and fact.
Akers has a PhD in economics from Columbia University and a BS in mathematics and economics from UAlbany. She's a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where she focuses on the economics of higher education. Before joining AEI, she worked as a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a visiting research scholar at the Federal Reserve Board, a fellow at Brookings Institution, and a staff economist at the Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush.
We support local, independent booksellers and Beth Akers' books are available at the independent Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza:
Making College Pay: An Economist Explains How to Make a Smart Bet on Higher Education: https://www.bhny.com/book/9780593238530
Game of Loans: The Rhetoric and Reality of Student Debt: https://www.bhny.com/book/9780691167152