WHO IS REALLY TO BLAME FOR THIS 'BACKBREAKING' DEBT?

'It is MY fault, and mine alone, then, that I am in this debt due to "needing" to attend Northeastern five years ago.'

No young lady, it’s not your fault, at least not entirely. Your student loans are similar to those subprime mortgages that brought about the wave of home foreclosures and the resulting bank meltdown. Loaning you money that you cannot possibly repay is the same as giving homebuyers a mortgage they cannot possibly keep up the payments for. The fault is not yours, it’s that of the lending institutions!
　
　
COLLEGE GRADUATE OWING BACKBREAKING $200K IN STUDENT LOANS STARTS WEBSITE BEGGING FOR DONATIONS
　
Mail Online
November 26, 2010
　
With crippling student debts of $200,000 one graduate has invented a novel way to beg for donations.
　
Kelli Space, who recently completed her course, has set up a website asking for people to contribute to her cause online.
　
The 23-year-old's website, TwoHundredThou.com, explains her story and asks visitors to make a payment to help bail her out.

'Monthly payments just for the private loans are currently $891 until Nov 2011 when they increase to $1,600 per month for the following 20 years,' the New Jersey resident wrote in an effort to elicit funds.
　
So far the response to help the former student at at Northeastern University in Boston has not been overwhelming.
　
To date, she's received $2,413.59 in donations and still owes $197,586.41, according to her website's progress page.
She wrote: 'I was 18 and the first person in my family (including extended family) to attend college.
　
'Therefore, not only was excitement consuming me, but my parents didn't exactly know how college would or wouldn't affect my salary in the future.'
　
She didn't get any of the scholarships she applied to during her top year of school, so she decided to go for broke and borrow the money to finance her education.
　
Miss Space wrote on her website: 'I don’t believe my college years were in any way glamorous, though I do realise I chose to give myself an experience that many other people can not and will not experience for themselves.
　
'It is MY fault, and mine alone, then, that I am in this debt due to "needing" to attend Northeastern five years ago.'
　
The idea for a website came to Space when she read about savekaryn.com (shopaholic Karyn Bosnak's website on which she asks for donations to free her from credit card debt) and milliondollarhomepage.com (Alex Tew's website on which he tries to sell pixels for $1 each).
　
'Both were soliciting donations - one for credit card debt and one in exchange for small advertisements online,' Miss Space said. 'And I figured mine could be considered a worthy enough cause.'
　
Even though Miss Space has so far only received a fraction of what she is looking for, she has gained some satisfaction from bringing attention to the daunting debt some college students are facing.
　
'The response has been seemingly negative so far and I'm doing my best not to focus on that,' she told the New York Daily News.
　
However, unlike a lot of recent college graduates, she's lucky enough to have a full-time job.
　
She is office manager for an Internet company in Manhattan, and lives in New Jersey with her parents.
　
'I want these issues out there because they are honestly plaguing a great deal of college graduates who are laden with debt,' she added.
　
'This is much less about me and more about the bigger picture.'