What’s Worse: Student Loan Debt, or no Student Loan Debt?

Student loans are an unfortunate part of life for many young professionals. Teenagers are lured to colleges with great facilities and professors, and don’t pay much thought to the tens of thousands of dollars they borrow to get away from mom and dad get an education until they’re out of college and start paying it back.

Next semester, Massachusetts college students may not need to worry about student loan debt, and not because Harvard freed up its endowment. Rather, it’s because the non-profit state organization that helps students and parents finance a college education can’t find any money to loan.

On WBUR’s Morning Edition, Bob Oakes interviewed Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority executive director Thomas Graf about the agency’s inability to find funds to loan students and parents. Graf says investors are still skittish after the bottom fell out of the subprime mortgage market. MEFA usually has the money it needs to make low-interest loans together by March—this year, the agency has yet to find any money at all.

We never thought we’d say this—but we’re really grateful for our student loans.