Guess the author of that opinion piece never took a basic course in logic.
He’s drawing a false equivalency between the population of buyers of expensive cars and the population of students who take out loans to finance their education. He also doesn’t seem to understand the difference between cars (which can be sold or surrendered if the buyer can’t keep up with payments)— and an intangible like an education.
He also doesn’t seem to understand that car loans require a showing of credit worthiness, which entails showing that one has enough income to make the payments before the loan is approved.
Obviously the former students who can’t keep up with loan payments are generally the unemployed or underemployed, perhaps including many who never graduated but are still bound to pay back the money they borrowed for the education that didn’t turn out so well.
And one more thing --there is no auto loan “crisis” because car loans are secured. When borrowers can’t pay, the creditor repossesses the car, which often extinguishes the underlying loan. To the extent that funds might be owed post-repossession, the claim can be be extinguished in bankruptcy.
And of course that’s the bottom line problem with student loans: large sums of money are lent to young people with no income or employment history, and the loans for the most part are exempt from bankruptcy.
I did not read the article. We did not have car loans or student loans. We use different methods to finance both.