Well, it’s nicer than what you usually see on the side of the highway. via Buy Her Face

College is expensive, which is a bummer. So is the fact that student debt ends up ruining your love life. But if you don’t want to take out loans, what else are you supposed to do, other than be born rich or take up bank robbery as a hobby? The Post brings us the story of one couple in Queens who decided to get around the student loan trap by turning themselves into living billboards. (more…)

Hey, he might be cute underneath the mask.

As if dating and debt are not depressing enough topics on their own, a fear that literally keeps me up at night with anxiety has been NPR confirmed: if you have a lot of student loan debt, you are not marriage material.

Big debt is an impediment to moving forward in every aspect of your adult life. Call me naive, but I was hoping love might be the exception. Now this, according to NPR: those of us who took loans as an investment in our future are having problems getting mates. The piece goes on to quote folks on both sides: those who view six-figure debt as a dealbreaker, and spurned debtors who deal with financial disparity by sticking to their Sallie Mae bracket. (more…)

Hey guys, which way to the gourmet mayo shop?

“Brain drain” is not a problem we face here at all, as Brooklyn is often the place where all the country’s young fertile minds wash up. Not so much for smaller cities such as Niagara Falls and states like Kansas, both which are facing a crippling lack of talent and young professionals. So to fix this, those places have taken to the municipal equivalent of paying for sex: both places are offering to pay down your student loans if you move and work there. Niagara will pay you $3,500 per year for the next two years; Kansas is offering to either waive income tax for up to five years or pay your student loans up to $15,000 if you agree to move to one of the “Rural Opportunity Zones” spread throughout the state, though it looks like none of them is in a major metro area. Sounds fun! (more…)

All videos all the time today! Because happy $1 trillion student debt day! OK, we added the “baby” part.

Coming soon: the video of Mitt Romney beatboxing headlines on Jay Leno.

(not really) (more…)

I know a liquor store where we can cash this right now!

We learned this week 1) How much your education will actually earn you and 2) that student loan debt doesn’t factor into your eligibility for food stamps, no matter how large it is. And then later this week some economists started fretting over a potential “debt bomb” coming our way thanks to the $870 billion in student loan debt we all now have, which is now enough to (we did it, everyone!) surpass credit cards and auto loans in terms of how much we owe. So debt is American! Everyone’s doing it! And if you’re like me, you’ve stopped thinking your debt will be ever actually be paid off, and treat it instead like a child support payment to an invisible far-away ungrateful dragon baby. So, screw it, let’s commiserate: how much do you owe in student debt? Tell us in the comments (you can be an anony mouse if you like): biggest one wins the internet for the day. I’ll start…