Aram Zucker-Scharff

ilovecharts:

Hi Guys!

Today, I’m headed down to the White House to participate in the live Q&A the President will be doing with Tumblr about the importance of making college more affordable for current students, graduates and their families and the new executive actions he announced on Monday to ease the burden of college debt for millions of Americans.

David Karp will be interviewing the the President, using questions from the Tumblr community. The event will stream live today at 4pm ET on the White House Tumblr.

Above are some of the charts from a newly released White House report which show … pretty much what I’m sure you all already know. The current system is, shall we say, imperfect. There is a lot of work to be done. Hopefully, today is illuminating and gives us reason to be optimistic. 

I’ll post any other charts I come across here, document the trip on my personal Tumblr (so as not to spam those who are uninterested with non-charty content here) and will be live-Tweeting the event and attendant mischief at /ilovecharts. I’ll see you there!

Hugs and hand-pounds,
Jason

Build your own banking scandal news story (Barclays edition):

QUARTZ BANK SCANDAL POST GENERATOR v4.7 // BEGIN TEMPLATE // Today [1. Bank] was hit with a [2. Size of penalty] fine by [3. Regulatory authority] for its part in manipulating the [4. Benchmark] market. The market is worth [5. Size of market]. [6. Stern statement from regulator] [7. Contrite statement from bank] In the…

Ugh.

You can blame student debt for America’s inequality and shrinking middle class:

There is a tendency among elite opinion makers to believe that debt accrued while gaining a college degree is “good debt” that isn’t problematic because, as the thought goes, those with college degrees tend to make enough money to recoup their debt over a lifetime. Student debt is supposedly an equalizer—

But…

Student debt is actually preventing them from participating in the wealth-building processes that previous generations have enjoyed.

The debate over student debt usually focuses on those right out of school, but that masks that a substantial portion of those with student debt struggle mightily to pay off their loans in a timely manner, delaying (sometimes in perpetuity) their entry into the middle class. Research by the US Federal Reserve Bank of New York finds that many borrowers still haven’t paid off their student loans by their 40s and 50s.

The legacy of the Obama administration? Hope is dead.: Nearly 70% of Americans believe that hard work will not allow them to succeed. 80% believe the this generation will have to work harder than the last to excel. 78% believe that their children have …