My Little Debt to the Government

There has been a lot of talk about the value of education, how it is the path to the middle class and how American citizens are suffering over the cost. Obama has commented on this repeatedly. Some numbers:
Jeremy Siegle's book, "Stocks for the Long Run" compiled a lot of data from the last 200 years (the last decade excepted.) Since 1802 the annual return corrected for inflation has been: stocks 6.5-7.0%, bonds 2.8%. Generally Siegle felt that any 10 year period would show growth in value of the stock market. (Remember this for tomorrow.)

Current U.S. bond returns are: 3 month 0.01%, 6 month 0.05%, 12 month 0.01%, 2 year 0.26%, 3 year 0.39% 5 year 0.87%, 7 year 1.42 %, 10 year 1.97%, 30 year 3.01%.

85% of medical students graduate with debt averaging 160.0 thousand dollars, lawyers 106.3 thousand, teachers 18 thousand. Annually in the United States 100 billion dollars in public loans, 10 billion in private are taken for education. 65.6% of the graduates of 4 year scholastic college programs graduate with an average of 23.1 thousand in debt. The next burden, of course, is the interest rate they pay.

My school loan from the U.S. Department of Education, set by the national government, is 6.8%. 6.8%! That is equivalent to the 3 month bond of Malawi, a landlocked African nation with no natural resources, whose major product is tobacco and whose per capita income is 800 dollars a year.

So in this environment, with historically low interest rates, an emphasis on education and national concern over the cost and financing of education my government is charging me 6.8% on my education loans. This is completely under their control. This, in spite of what they say. Now how are we to reconcile that disparity?