As the nation’s economy inches toward recovery, economic growth is being challenged by an ever worsening student loan problem. And as a new ProPublica/Chronicle of Higher Education investigation finds, the debt burden is longer limited to young people.  

US News and World Report found that while the amount of other types of household debt has been trending down, debt from higher education is only increasing. One-third of all student debt is still held by people under 30, sharply impacting their spending habits even if they are able to find jobs.

But now, student loan debt is increasing for older generations, too, as more parents take out federal Parent Plus loans to help their children attend college. ProPublica’s investigation found that the number of parents taking out these loans has almost doubled since 2000. Unlike other federal loans, there is no cap on borrowing for Parent Plus loans. And since the government does not track default rates among these borrowers to the same extent it does for other types of student loans, it’s difficult to know how borrowers are doing. Like many other student loans, the Parent Plus loans cannot be discharged in bankruptcy.

The Chronicle of Higher Education has an interactive table listing the average Parent Plus borrowing amounts for more than 1,500 college programs. Many of the schools with the highest average Parent Plus loan amounts — some topping $30,000 a year — are arts institutions like Boston’s Berklee College of Music, which has an average loan amount of $33,092.

Many others are for-profit colleges, a growing source of controversy in higher education. Just this week, new US Department of Education data show that roughly 20 percent of students at for-profit colleges defaulted on their loans within three years, more than double the nonprofit college rate. 

                                                                                                            –CHRISTINA PRIGNANO

BEACON HILL

Massachusetts officials disclose to potential bond investors that misconduct at a state drug testing lab may give rise to significant costs, CommonWealth reports. (The state’s bond prospectus has other interesting tidbits as well.)  Law enforcement officials are bracing themselves to deal with a sudden release of inmates with violent records in connection with the lab scandal, the Globe reports. The state’s district attorneys are asking for $10 million a year to cover a the added hiring they say will be necessary to review and handle the surge in caseloads that the lab scandal will cause. A Barnstable judge releases three inmates as a result of the scandal.

Inmates at the Bristol County House of Correction staged a protest in reaction to an early lockdown ordered by Sheriff Thomas Hodgson in his escalating battle with the state over what he says is a politically motivated short-funding of his budget.

The prison inmate who won a court ruling requiring the state to pay for his sex-change operation is now demanding the state cover $800,000 in legal costs, WBUR reports. The inmate had offered to waive the fee request if the state dropped its appeal of the judge’s ruling.

CASINOS

Steven Malanga writes in City Journal that the embrace of casino gambling by states like Massachusetts is a quest for economic returns that never materialize.

MUNICIPAL MATTERS

The fiscal overseer of Lawrence tells city officials that poor communication between the building department and the assessor’s office resulted in hundreds of developments not going on the city’s tax rolls, the Eagle-Tribune reports. At a time when the city was laying off police and firefighters, it failed to collect about $300,000 in property tax revenues.

NATIONAL POLITICS/WASHINGTON

A Missouri program that offers free birth control coverage similar to what the Obama administration is mandating has cut abortion rates by 80 percent over a four-year period, according to a study.

ELECTION 2012

Dan Kennedy, writing for the Huffington Post, says President Obama’s somnambulant debate performance, more than Mitt Romney’s, changed the media narrative of the race. Keller@Large compares Obama to fired Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine, and not in a good way. The National Review reconstructs the debate plan that was hatched at the Vermont vacation estate of former Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey. Fred Barnes, at the Weekly Standard, praises the performance of moderator Jim Lehrer. The debate drew 70 million viewers, the New York Times reports. It also set a Twitter record, Politico reports. John Kerry, as the Romney stand-in for debate prep, is taking blame in The Daily Beast for Obama’s poor performance. PBS defends Big Bird, the Wall Street Journal reports. A few possible reasons why the president was so bad. Some aides say that Obama won’t be back for the next debate. The Atlantic has a problem with the term “small business” and would like to strike it from the next debate.

New Yorker editor David Remnick checks in with some old Obama friends, classmates, and law professors, who were less shocked than everyone else at his debate performance. Obama’s “instincts and talents have never included going for an opponent’s jugular,” Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe tells him “That’s just not who he is or ever has been.”  

Paul Levy does a little fact-checking and says Romney, in praising Massachusetts health care reform, forgot to mention its success was due in large part to a $300 million federal Medicaid waiver and $500 million in federal support.

Scot Lehigh, acknowledging he is in a tiny minority (maybe a minority of one?), writes that Obama had “a pretty good night.” He says Wednesday’s debate offered a good contrast between the candidates’ views on the economy and federal budget, and that Obama’s came off as more credible.

Romney’s “47 percent” speech, in which the points he made were, in Romney’s later words, not “elegantly stated,” is now being termed “just completely wrong.” By Romney.

Elizabeth Warren received the backing of a group of prominent Boston black ministers, who denounced Scott Brown’s continued focus on her claims of Native American heritage.

The Salem News examines where US Rep. John Tierney and challenger Richard Tisei stand on Medicare, the Affordable Care Act, and taxes. Stepping away from the mainstream media reluctance to render judgment on the truth of candidate claims, a Globe headline and story say a Tierney attack ad against Tisei is “misleading.”

The Attleboro Sun Chronicle highlights the service history of Fourth Congressional District candidates Sean Bielat and Joe Kennedy III.

BUSINESS ECONOMY

Unemployment drops below 8 percent for the first time since 2009. It’s good news for workers, but also a huge boost on the political front to Obama’s reelection effort, and the campaign angle is sucking up all the oxygen. Taking to Twitter, former General Electric chief Jack Welch accuses the White House — with no evidence — of cooking the numbers. Even some Republicans suggest Jack is whacked. Meanwhile, former Obama economic adviser Austan Goolsbee tweets at Welch, “you’ve lost your mind.” The New York Times has an interactive graphic that looks at the numbers through blue and red lenses.

A Beverly lobsterman donates rare  blue lobster to New England Aquarium, the Salem News reports.

The Kraft Group, owner of the New England Patriots and New England Revolution, is looking to Assembly Square in Somerville as a possible site for a new soccer stadium, the Boston Business Journal reports.

EDUCATION

Boston’s wrenching effort to revamp its student assignment process gets national attention in The New York Times, thanks to the backdrop of 1970s busing wars. The Boston Herald calls the new Boston school assignment plan proposed this week “intriguing.”

The Berkshire Eagle is pleased that more dollars will be going to Berkshire Community College and the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts has launched its first major fundraising effort.

Students at the Gerena School in Springfield wanted to throw pies at the principal and the vice principal if pupils improved their MCAS scores. They did, and they got their wish.

HEALTH CARE

The Globe reports that a Framingham pharmacy is at the center of a widening investigation into contamination of an injectable steroid with a fungus that is believed to be the cause of a national outbreak of a rare form of meningitis.  At least 35 people in six states have been been infected, and five have died.

A new ordinance in Fairhaven bans the sale of tobacco at stores containing pharmacies, including the town’s Wal-Mart, Shaw’s, and Stop & Shop.

TRANSPORTATION

Lt. Gov. Tim Murray presides over the opening of a new CSX rail freight terminal in Worcester and expanded commuter train service between the city and Boston, the Telegram & Gazette reports. The project represents a $100 million investment by the state and a $100 million investment by CSX to move freight operations from Boston to Worcester and raise bridges between Worcester and the New York state line so double-stacked cars can use the tracks. In an editorial, the T&G praises the outcome and Murray for making it happen.

The TSA rolls out a new body scanner that’s not as intrusive as the previous full body scanners that were just a bit too detailed.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE

Taunton police shot and killed a 34-year-old man who allegedly pulled a gun on officers and refused to drop it as they approached him with a warrant.

The former Avon water superintendent was sentenced to one year probation and fined $15,000 after pleading guilty to falsifying town water quality reports.

MEDIA

There are more gay characters on television this season than ever, a new study finds.