Borrowed Future

Apparently kids can fill out $500 scholarship applications everyday and end up getting $95K-$500K scholarships to pay for college in full. City colleges are $25K per year if you're living on campus. My son moved back home and drives 90 miles round trip to school to saves the money, but with gas and tolls are we really saving? Even community college tuition has gone through the roof. This documentary does not take the huge rise in cost into consideration. Apparently the whole student loans problem is "the fact that kids take out loans. One person had the nerve to suggested that you can learn it all online for free and companies are looking more at the person rather then the piece of paper. What companies????!!!! They all demand a degree for jobs that really don't need one and give preference to grads from more expensive colleges.

Decent documentary outlining the predatory student loan industry and a bit of how we got here. Generally some good advice for high school students looking to go to college; applying for scholarships, choosing a school that costs less, working while in school to reduce their debt burden. I think they harp too much on the idea that any amount of debt is bad and everyone should strive to have no student debt at all. That's just currently not feasible for most people and there is still truth to the idea that you won't be able to make as much money in college as you will in your career so delaying paying for your degree can be positive as long as you run the numbers ahead of time. Obviously a teacher doesn't make enough money to pay off $100k in loans but taking $20k to help bridge the gap to making college work can be paid off relatively easily on the career you got from that degree.

This documentary is eye opening for high schoolers that don't understand what student loans will do to their future. I would highly recommend watching it to parents and high schoolers. It's essential that people understand the impact of these loans on their future. Too many people don't understand the impact until it's too late to make a different choice. That is why this documentary is so great. There are other options, like cheaper schools that have just as good quality of education but maybe not all the hype, plus scholarships and working through college. I don't know why other commenters are so harsh... my heart broke for some of the people they interviewed. I am definitely showing this to my kids when they get to high school.

This is no more than a one sided hit piece designed to garner support to pay all outstanding student loans. If you make a decision, without getting proper advice, to take out a loan for a degree like Gender Studies or Social Working and then cannot get work to pay for it, then that is your problem. What next - payback all the doctors and lawyers and engineers who did pay off their loans? By all means fix up the loans - they are far too easy to get for a degree that will not provide many with paid employment. But this is a one sided doco that is not a real or true examination of all the issues and views on the matter.

Honestly Shocking. Student Loans have truly become the normal way of life for higher education and before seeing this documentary I didn't give much attention to it. Now I see there is MASSIVE problem that cannot be left untouched, and the government sure ain't gonna fix it.

It was an okay documentary. I have a hard time garnering sympathy for a gentleman who put himself 100k in debt, played 3 sports, didn't work through college, and then is singing the blues about being in so much debt they couldn't take a honeymoon because he couldn't afford it on a teachers salary. Where's the responsibility of the borrower to know a sociology degree will more than likely not get you a lucrative job to fulfill your obligations? Even way less sympathy for the orthodontist and his wife who put themselves a million dollars into debt because he more than likely will be able to pay his debt back several times over. I guess what I'm saying is these lenders are predatory but the borrower also bears some responsibility as well.

Not a horrible watch, but nothing you can't get for free just by reading opinion articles in any major publication. The characters weren't believable, and the ending was predictable.

Decent documentary outlining the predatory student loan industry and a bit of how we got here. Generally some good advice for high school students looking to go to college; applying for scholarships, choosing a school that costs less, working while in school to reduce their debt burden. I think they harp too much on the idea that any amount of debt is bad and everyone should strive to have no student debt at all. That's just currently not feasible for most people and there is still truth to the idea that you won't be able to make as much money in college as you will in your career so delaying paying for your degree can be positive as long as you run the numbers ahead of time. Obviously a teacher doesn't make enough money to pay off $100k in loans but taking $20k to help bridge the gap to making college work can be paid off relatively easily on the career you got from that degree.