The most popular number in higher education today is $1 trillion—the total amount of outstanding student loan debt, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It’s big and scary; the size of figure we're more used to seeing attached to wars and national budgets, and easily encapsulates a broadly held sense that college is unaffordable for all but the wealthiest families. Not surprisingly, the figure is ubiquitous in the media, producing alarming charts, such as this one from a piece in Mother Jones about different plans to deal with student loan interest rates:
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