Hello and welcome to the political orphanage, a home for pluckiness fits and problem solvers. I'm Andrew Heaton and they haven't

caught me yet.

This week is a two-parter because, frankly, I've been off a little more than I can chew.

Instead of just answering the question,

why is college so expensive,

I sort of overshot the exit on the highway and did more research and

recording that I need to and I felt inclined to dive into student loan debt so for

ease of organizational purpose we're going to do that as its own episode today.

What does student loan debt look like in America?

What does it taste like?

What fashion accessories go with it? More importantly, if we got college tuition prices under control,

what do we do about all those people with debt faking their own deaths

or fleeing the country to get out from under those excessive student loans.

That's what we're going to talk about on today's program.

Do we forgive it or not?

Now I am assuming that everyone listening at this moment has more student loan debt than I do

and is quietly glaring and sharpening a butcher knife as I discuss the subject, waiting for

my opinion on whether we should forgive it or not.

So, being a coward, let me first explain why student loans are legally distinct from

every other kind of loan and why they cannot be discharged through bankruptcy.

In 1976, Congress extended eligibility for federal student loans to applicants who had not completed high school.

The logic being, I think, that high school dropouts are struggling,

...