Today in the United States two-thirds of graduate students leave colleges and universities with student debt. The Institute for College Access and Success has started an initiative called the “Student Debt Project” to estimate how much student debt has accumulated over the years. What they found is that the average student will graduate with $26,000 in debt and, in more extreme cases, with over $100,000 in unpaid loans. These numbers have serious underlying implications, not just for student borrowers and their lenders, but rather for the entire national economy. With more than a quarter of a million students graduating each year, the nation's student debt has reached more than $1.2 trillion — or about 6 percent of the country's total debt, and double what it was in 2007. While Americans are already struggling to Pay off credit card and auto loan debt, the national student loan debt is larger than both, second only to mortgage loan debt. Those burdened by unpaid loans are not the only ones affected, however, entrepreneurs, businesses and employees will be affected by the stress that huge debt can place on an economy. As unpaid balances pile up, people will spend less money where they can. Consumer spending drives the economy; without it, businesses will make less profit, employee wages will be cut, and loans will continue to go unpaid. The looming student debt crisis isn't far away, either. In Catie Gutierrez's testimony to StudentDebtCrisis.org, a non-profit organization geared towards bringing about reforms in higher education, she wrote: "I have 129,000 federal student loan debt, my first job fell apart after 3 months.. .I'm afraid I won't have money for a new car, to pay rent or to have a normal life increased to help recoup some of the money that may be lost after tuition cuts. Additionally, NYU's tuition rate would increase while its admissions rate would decrease, gaining more students and higher college rankings, which at in turn could award NYU more money in donations than ever before, perhaps most importantly, setting a trend for competitive pricing in the NYU education market will have ensured an invaluable long-term investment; The aggressive quality-based competition seen today suggests that universities and colleges will compete equally aggressively to cut tuition. As tuition rates rise across the board, tuition prices will decline—a trend that will simultaneously provide the opportunity to reverse the student debt crisis and protect those positive externalities that shape the future day by day...