Dive Brief:
- Student loan counseling, required on every campus, is often ineffective at giving students the information they need to make smart decisions.
- Nonprofit college access and success consultancy firm TG has studied counseling sessions over the last two years, finding counseling modules created by the government to be generic and hard to understand, The New York Times explains.
- TG found counseling sessions generally were poorly timed and included inadequately explained topics, too much text, and not enough human interaction, according to the column.
Dive Insight:
The collective student loan debt in the United States tops $1 trillion, and how to address this staggering number has become a national debate. Several U.S. senators and representatives have introduced resolutions to provide debt-free college, and President Barack Obama has advocated a free community college experience. Students at the now-defunct Corinthian Colleges campuses are advocating for loan forgiveness and getting support from elected officials in Congress. And the Department of Education this year has severed contracts with five student loan debt collectors accused of unscrupulous advising and collection practices. Surely the student loan industry is in line for an overhaul.