Going to college is a serious business, in more ways than one. Student loan debt is on the rise with no end in sight. Northern Kentucky University should be active in making sure student loans don’t continue to rise.

According to the U.S. Government, the national student loan debt is over $1 trillion. Some Americans owe more in student loans than they do on their credit cards and it grows at $2,853.88 per second, according to www.finaid.org. This debt is much harder to get rid of.

Bankruptcy laws have been altered to make it very difficult to get rid of student loan debt, so once you have it you are faced with two options: either you pay it or you die with it. If you do not pay your loans when you graduate, the Federal Government could garnish your wages, tax refunds and even your Social Security benefits.

American students are endlessly preached to about the need for a college degree in order to get a “good job,” and told that after they graduate they will be able to pay off their student loans with the “good job.” Students are finding out that they’ve been highly misinformed or even worse, lied to all along. The consequences are becoming the elephant in the living room.

Few find careers immediately after college, the majority are finding themselves in their mid-20s, living with their parents, in debt and working at the same service job they held through college. Fifty percent of Americans are now poor or low income, according to MSNBC.

Although this is not true for all students, or even those at NKU, it’s still a looming problem in our futures as students.

The student loan debt bubble is the greatest thing to happen to debt collectors in decades. The New York Times reported that one out of six Americans have defaulted on their loans. We shouldn’t fear because Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has promised it won’t be a crisis. We can trust him, right?

New NKU students should think long and hard about college and try to find a compromise between what they love and what will pay the bills. A degree isn’t a ticket to the middle-class anymore. It was in 1952, but not in 2012.