I ran across an interesting piece from Open Secrets on members of Congress with student debt. At one point, the article lists the top ten student loan debtors in Congress. Because information about members of Congress tends to be more public, I thought it would be interesting to run down the background details of these ten. What schools did they go to? What is their income? And so on.
The student debt statistics would predict that these ten have advanced professional degrees and are making very high incomes. That tends to be true of high levels of student debt in general: people collecting high incomes carry the highest debts because they got expensive degrees that enable them to collect high incomes.
Jim Bridenstine
Student Debt Total: $100,001 – $250,000
Education: Master of Business Administration, Cornell (Professional)
Income: $174,000 from Congress alone (Standard Member Pay)
John Carter
Student Debt Total: $100,001 – $250,000
Education: Juris Doctor, University of Texas Law School (Professional)
Income: $174,000 from Congress alone (Standard Member Pay)
Gerry Connolly
Student Debt Total: $55,003 – $165,000
Education: Master of Public Administration, Harvard’s Kennedy School (Professional)
Income: $174,000 from Congress alone (Standard Member Pay)
Louis B. Gohmert Jr.
Student Debt Total: $70,001 – $130,000
Education: Juris Doctor, Baylor Law School (Professional)
Income: $174,000 from Congress alone (Standard Member Pay)
Tom McClintock
Student Debt Total: $60,001 – $115,000
Education: Bachelor’s Degree, UCLA (non-professional)
Income: $174,000 from Congress alone (Standard Member Pay)
Grace Meng
Student Debt Total: $100,001 – $250,000
Education: Juris Doctor, Cardozo School of Law (Professional)
Income: $174,000 from Congress alone (Standard Member Pay)
Pedro Pierluisi
Student Debt Total: $65,002 – $150,000
Education: Juris Doctor, George Washington University (Professional)
Income: $174,000 from Congress alone (Standard Member Pay)
Raul Ruiz
Student Debt Total: $115,002 – $300,000
Education: Doctor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School (Professional)
Education: Master in Public Policy, Harvard’s Kennedy School (Professional)
Education: Master in Public Health, Harvard School of Public Health (Professional)
Income: $174,000 from Congress alone (Standard Member Pay)
Tom Rooney
Student Debt Total: $100,001 – $250,000
Education: Juris Doctor, University of Miami School of Law (Professional)
Income: $174,000 from Congress alone (Standard Member Pay)
Kevin Yoder
Student Debt Total: $80,003 – $200,000
Education: Juris Doctor, University of Kansas School of Law (Professional)
Income: $174,000 from Congress alone (Standard Member Pay)
So the prediction holds strong. Nine of the ten top student debtors according to Open Secrets have advanced professional degrees. Here I only included their Congressional income because I could not find reliable sources for other income. But that alone is $174,000/year. So that too coheres with the prediction that high student debt is generally carried by high-income individuals.
Some of the people on this list are very strange however, which causes me to wonder what exactly these student debt totals mean. For instance, Tom McClintock is a 57 year old man who has only a Bachelor’s degree from UCLA in 1978 (he is the one person on the list without a professional degree). Open Secrets says he is carrying at least $60,000 in student debt. It is hard to imagine how a man 33 years from graduating from a public school that at the time enjoyed very substantial state subsidies would have that much debt. His wikipedia page shows he has been employed as a politician for almost all of those years, and he has been in Congress making around $170,000 for the last four years. Something else must be going on here.