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Student loan debt in the United States now exceeds $1.6 trillion dollars, having nearly doubled over the last ten years. Some maintain that this debt burden is so onerous that young Americans have been forced to delay starting families and to forgo buying their own homes. Although the federal government has declared a temporary moratorium on debt repayment in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, many are pressing for more permanent relief, including, in some quarters, wholesale debt forgiveness. This presentation examines the various dimensions of the student debt issue. Who exactly has compiled what debt? Where do the burdens press most heavily? What has contributed to the sharp rise in borrowing? What public policy options are available and appropriate?
 

Speaker Bio:
Mark W. Huddleston served as president of the University of New Hampshire from 2007 to 2018, the longest presidential tenure in UNH history. He earlier served as president of Ohio Wesleyan University, dean of the college of Arts & Sciences at the University of Delaware, and as a faculty member at SUNY Buffalo and the University of Delaware. Huddleston received his BA from SUNY Buffalo and his MA and PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, all in Political Science. He has published extensively in the field of public administration, with a particular focus on senior civil servants, and has consulted with US agencies and international organizations, including the World Bank and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, on administrative and financial reforms in the Balkans, Mexico, Southern Africa and Central Asia. A good pilot and a bad golfer, he now spends most of his voluminous free time working with wood and trying to learn to play various stringed instruments. Father of three grown children, Huddleston lives with his wife, Emma, in Vermont.

Host Bio:
Charles Wheelan '88, Senior Lecturer and Policy Fellow, was formerly a senior lecturer in public policy at the Harris School at the University of Chicago prior to returning to Dartmouth full-time in June 2012. He has also served as a correspondent for The Economist, and written freelance articles for the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. In addition to his work at Dartmouth, he has spent time as a speechwriter, a Congressional candidate and in other policy-related positions that inform his academic work. He has authored four books: Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science, Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data, The Centrist Manifesto, and Naked Money: A Revealing Look at What It Is and Why It Matters. He is the author of The Rationing, a novel published in 2019 about the politics of a pandemic. His most recent book is We Came, We Saw, We Left, which is a family memoir describing a nine-month trip around the world. Wheelan is the founder of Unite America, an organization working to promote political change by re-empowering the political center. He earned his B.A. from Dartmouth College, his M.A. in public affairs from Princeton University, and his Ph.D. in public policy from the University of Chicago.