Words from The New Republic

This is happening awful fast...
(By Adam Kushner)
I'm reading my friend Anya Kamenetz's Generation Debt in galleys right now (it comes out in February, but you can pre-order on Powells.com), and I'm scared stiff. Kamenetz retreads some familiar, if frightening, ground about young people and Social Security, jobs, and health insurance, proposing some sane liberal solutions. But, as a twenty-something myself, her most interesting--and most terrifying--reportage shows that people of my generation must begin their careers with mountains of debt unlike what any other generation in American history has contended with. Average student loans from four-year colleges are approaching $20,000 (grad students average $46,000, law and medical students around $100,000), and these debts are creating social ripple effects: They're influencing young people's decisions about careers, when to marry and have children, how and when to buy houses and cars, and when to borrow from their families.