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Deep Dive On The Student Debt Crisis

Photo of a ball and chain with "student loans" written on it
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Millions of Americans graduate with student loans. Combined, 42 million Americans owe $1.3 trillion in student debt.

Forty-two million people in the United States owe $1.3 trillion in student debt, according to a recent report from Reveal radio program in conjunction with the Center for Investigative Reporting.

In 2014 in North Carolina, 61 percent of students graduating from public and private four-year institutions graduated with loans amounting to an average of $25,000 per individual, according to The Project on Student Debt. The privatization of Sallie Mae and the continued disinvestment in public higher education at the state level contribute to the problem.

Host Frank Stasio talks with senior reporter Lance Williams, co-author of the report “Who Got Rich Off The Student Debt Crisis.” He is also joined by Ashley Dale, a 51-year-old Raleigh software operator with a student loan balance of $78,000.

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Anita Rao is an award-winning journalist, host, creator, and executive editor of "Embodied," a weekly radio show and podcast about sex, relationships & health.
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.
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