Student debt and defaults surge

CS Monitor reports:

When Robert Applebaum graduated from Fordham Law in 1998, he took the public-interest job near to his heart: assistant district attorney in Brooklyn, N.Y., at a salary of $36,000 – despite law-school debt of $75,000. He took five years of forbearance on the loan. Bad move. Mr. Applebaum’s indebtedness today stands at $96,000, even though he fled the job he loved for the higher-paying private sector in 2003. “It’s like having a mortgage, but without the house,” he says of monthly payments just under $500. At that rate, the debt won’t be fully paid for two decades.

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