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"The Student Loan Mess: How Good Intentions Created a Trillion-Dollar Problem"

Aired on Thursday, July 10th.

Could America's current student loan debt --- which now exceeds $1 trillion and is predicted to reach $2 trillion by 2020 --- somehow become the sequel to the mortgage meltdown? Some economists think it's possible. Our guest on this edition of ST is Eric Best, an Assistant Professor of Emergency Management at Jacksonville State University. Along with his father, sociologist Joel Best of the University of Delaware, Eric is the co-author of "The Student Loan Mess: How Good Intentions Created a Trillion-Dollar Problem" (University of California Press). As Eric asserts on our program, we as a nation are now facing a dire economic crisis when it comes to student loans --- a crisis that's been fueled over the past few generations by concerns about deadbeat students, crushing debt, exploitative for-profit colleges, and changing attitudes about the purpose and/or value of a college education.

Rich Fisher is celebrating his 40th year of service to Public Radio Tulsa. Since 2000, he has been the general manager of Public Radio Tulsa, and previously served as the host of the public affairs program, StudioTulsa, which ran from 1992-2021. Prior to that, he served as music director, a program host and operations director for the station.
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