michaela: hello and welcome to "global 3000." education means a chance to escape poverty, to build a better future for yourself and your children. that's backed up by many statistics, and that's also what our correspondents around the globe keep reporting back to us. but in the united states, of all places, more and more young people find themselves trapped by the costs of launching a career. we find out why, and here's what else we have coming up for you over the next half-hour. debt traps -- how student loans are plaguing the lives of young americans.

magic mountains -- how the andes provide drinking water for millions. and finding their feet -- how a teacher helps young migrants in europe. getting a university degree will set any family back quite a bit of money. for many students that means taking out a loan. in the united states, nothing could be easier. but for years now the return on this investment has been shrinking. while tuition fees have risen six-fold since the 1980's, average incomes have merely doubled. so, graduates have to work longer to clear their debt. students are supposed to be the winners in the growing education market, and yet more and more wish they had never signed up for their degree. reporter: craig clavette has a problem -- a big problem.

he's just 30 years old and already deep in debt. he's brought a cardboard box out of the basement, full of unpaid bills and demands for payment of -- for amounts he can't raise. every day, collection agencies phone him and press him for payment. craig is more than $200,000 u.s. in debt because he studied at one of the art institutes, a system of for-profit art colleges that earn money on students. craig: basically they said, 'yeah, it costs a lot, but it'll be worth it, because you'll be able to pay it right out of the gate, and you'll be making more than everyone else when you're in the work force.' reporter: craig believed the art institute's promises. the ai offers courses in design, art, and fashion and students pay big bucks for them -- very big bucks. to finance them, ai offers loans guaranteed publicly by the federal government and privately by banks.

when craig signed them, he thought he was doing just the right thing. works it might just -- >> it might just change your perspective. craig: they definitely sugarcoated it. they were telling me about it and how much it would accrue interest over time and how much i would make to be able to pay it. reporter: was craig just stupid, and was it his own fault, or is there method in this madness? we're at a legal service centre -- center in boston, massachusetts. lawyer toby merrill works here. she knows many cases of students who feel they've been bled dry. she suspects the private commercial colleges target them specifically. toby: so, the business scheme is to target people who won't be able to tell, at least not at first, that they are getting ripped off. so, that includes low-income people, people that are desperate to change their situation. there is an art institute school

just around the corner from us here in massachusetts, and i've seen a number of people who've borrowed just really incredible sums of money, and a lot of them have had truly terrible experiences. reporter: the art institutes are run by a private company, the education management corporation, edmc for short. the investment bank goldman sachs owns 43% of its shares. with more than 100 locations and more than 100,000 students, edmc is the second-largest provider of for-profit colleges in the u.s. it receives billions in state subsidies. after getting his bachelor's degree in media and design, craig withdrew to the small town of torrington, connecticut, not far from new york city, and moved back in with his mother. he hasn't found the good job the institute promised. in fact, he's working two jobs, one in a bar and the other at a filling station. craig has to raise $1200 a month

to make the payments and interest on his private loans. craig works hard. u.s. law decrees that even if he files for bankruptcy, he'll -- he still has to repay his student loan. we show greg -- craig's case to someone who knows edmc's business practices from her own experience. kathleen bittel used to work for the company. she recruited students, got them to sign loans, and advised them. craig: they definitely sugarcoated it. reporter: and she regrets it to this day. kathleen: i saw hundreds of kids like him. it breaks my heart. what they do is just wrong, on so many levels. everything he said was absolutely true. i saw it happen hundreds and hundreds of times.

they're stealing futures. they're stealing futures. they promise them the world, and they give them nothing for it but debt. reporter: are edmc's art institutes defrauding students? ai's parent company wrote us that the accusations referred to the past and the situation is different now. on their website the ceo makes , assurances. edward west: it is in the very fabric of who we are. as chief executive officer, i believe in a culture that promotes compliance with federal and state laws, agency rules and regulations. reporter: kathleen bittel doesn't believe him. she says the company falsified statistics to get public funding and federal student loan money. and that still infuriates her. kathleen: being forced to cook the books for the jobs. it was all about money. it wasn't about education in any way, shape, or form. it was all about money. reporter: serious accusations from a chief witness whose testimony is now being dealt with by the legal authorities.

state prosecutors like glenn kaplan are demanding edmc return government subsidies. $11 billion in student loans are at stake. the company says the charges are unfounded. glenn kaplan: we have an investigation that is active into them. we are looking at them. we are reviewing allegations and complaints that have been made about them. reporter: loans like the ones craig signed in boston have long been passed on by the lenders. together with many others, they're packaged together and sold on as asset-backed securities to holding companies like hypo real estate in germany. glenn kaplan: there's money in two places. one, because the schools themselves charge so much more than a non-profit or a public school would, and you get all that money coming in. and then two, to the extent that private loans are made, there's money to be made when those loans are securitized. reporter: a nearly perfect system to get as much money as possible from students like craig clavette.

he'll be responsible for those loans all his life. craig: i am on anti-depressants right now. i'm completely stuck. yeah. michaela: so, when a 30-year-old comes to that conclusion because of a student loan, surely the people who lent him the money in the first place have a case to answer. what now? that's also the question that went through the mind of richard van as when he lost several fingers in an accident. when he couldn't afford tens of thousands of euros for a prosthetic hand, he became an inventor. today, he brings new hope into the lives of many people. reporter: breakfast with the gallus family in johannesburg.

12-year-old kayla was born without a left hand. she gets through her daily life ok, but sometimes she could use a second hand. kayla: i signed up for woodwork and they used a lot of nails. and i couldn't hammer in nails that time. and i just did the strings and the painting. the nails and everything the teacher had to do while i just sat there. reporter: her father looked for a prosthetic hand, but they were very expensive. manfred: the first quotation we got was about in the excess of 250,000 rand, which didn't make a lot of sense to us as kayla was still a growing girl. and also the gentleman doing the prosthetic didn't really listen to my daughter. my daughter was born without a hand, so there are a lot of functionalities she's learned to adjust to, but there are certain functionalities she wanted. reporter: then manfred gallus read an article about a prosthetics maker who lived nearby.

the man who can help kayla is richard van as, a former carpenter. he's been making affordable alternatives to expensive prosthetics since 2012. richard: in 2011, i had severed four of my fingers on my right hand, and with that when i went to hospital, i was already thinking along the lines of how would i continue in my trade, how would i continue with life in general. and having this all open and a gory mess, i started actually paying attention to what's in the human hand, and then i thought this couldn't be too difficult, i'll make a replacement. reporter: richard made his first prosthetic fingers in just seven days. later, he developed the robotic hand that's going to help kayla. richard: this is the

orthoplastic. now this gets molded to the shape of your actual hand. reporter: laces and elastic bands hold the artificial digits together. the hand can be moved by bending the arm or the wrist. for richard, developing it was therapeutic. richard: pain can be a funny thing, you know. i think the more pain i had, the more the ideas seemed to flow. reporter: together with an american partner, richard van as developed a 3d printer, the robobeast. it produces the individual components for the prosthetics. kayla wants her new hand to be green. heated polylactic acid emerges from the printer head. making a hand costs the equivalent of 460 euros. richard often doesn't charge a penny for them. he earns his living by selling the printers at 3,800 euros a -- apiece. richard: the machine can actually print while it's being put on its side. you can actually turn it upside

down or whatever and do it and it still continues to print, and it doesn't lose its calibration. reporter: and it's robust enough to be used in crisis zones. in 2013, richard van as flew to syria. richard: i was contacted by a family that is faced by the hardships of the war there. and somewhere along the line they had actually seen the whole robohand thing, and then of course they had thought of their countrymen and all the pain and suffering that's been happening there. reporter: now his printers and prosthetics are in use in those crisis zones. after just 10 hours, kayla's hand is ready. richard comes by for the final fitting. richard: that's good. ok, there we go. there we go.

pick up. hold it. thank you. give it back to me. thank you. pick it up yourself. thank you. kayla: i'm happy because now i can finally hold other stuff and show off! manfred: it's just amazing. opportunities to do sport that she didn't have before or creative stuff, it's just amazing, so we're grateful. reporter: and in a year, kayla will have grown enough for a larger model. michaela: i guess you won't be all too surprised to hear that richard's next plan is to apply his technique to prosthetic legs. their search for gold led the spanish conquistadores right up into the colombian highlands. what they saw was just as precious. the paramos are individual, often self-contained ecosystems, which store amazing amounts of water. they stretch right across the andes and provide fresh drinking

water for millions of people. but climate change is causing them increasing problems as is the seemingly unbounded desire of human beings to squeeze more out of nature. reporter: an expedition to the andes. researchers from bogotá botanical garden are looking for a plant species that hasn't been spotted for 50 years. it grows only here, at an elevation of over 3000 meters, in a very special ecosystem. "páramo" is the name of this landscape in tropical mountains, above the timberline but below the snow line. its vegetation consists of shrubs, ferns, and mosses that exist only in south america.

mauricio: there are about 5000 different plants in the páramos. what's unusual is the number of indigenous species, because the páramos are like islands on the mainland, the valleys of the andes are sealed off from one another. so, it's not very likely that you'll find the flora of one páramo in another. reporter: the scientists are lucky. they find the plant right at the start of their expedition. they register its location via gps and take back seeds for the laboratory. it's one of more than 60 subspecies of the genus espeletia. these giant rosette plants are vital to the páramo ecosystem. but the researchers have found that climate change is putting the plants at risk, especially

through increased insect infestation. mauricio: because of the rise in temperature, the plants try to migrate to remain in their climate zone. but here they have nowhere to go, because they can't go higher. that means the plants found way up high in the mountains are gradually becoming extinct. reporter: the lush vegetation has a vital characteristic -- it acts like a giant sponge. the plants store moisture from the clouds and release it again slowly. like a natural reservoir, the wetlands of the andes feed streams and rivers even in the dry season. they're colombia's most important source of drinking water.

apart from global warming, ore and coal mining, as well as agriculture, are drastically changing the tropical highlands. mauricio: it's common practice for farmers to burn the páramos so they can use them as grazing land afterwards. animal husbandry changes the soil and the countryside, which means the páramos can't store as much water, and the ecosystem no longer functions. reporter: people in the andes have lived from farming for centuries. small farmers are among the poorest people in colombia.

the project team from the botanical garden wants to work with them, to convince them of the importance of protecting the environment. this farmer is getting a precise map of his land for the first time. hopefully it will help him protect sensitive areas like springs and streams. saul: we have to accept the reality on the ground. the farmers won't stop farming. it's their livelihood. it's how they feed their families. so, we need a two-pronged strategy that takes into account the interests of the farmers but also protects the water resources. reporter: the water from the mountain region even supplies colombia's capital, bogotá.

8 million people depend on water from the páramos. the population is set to grow by more than 20% in the coming years, according to estimates. bogotá's botanical garden isn't just a green oasis at the heart of the city. it's also an important research center. scientists here are focusing on protecting the páramos. the botanists have registered more than 11,000 different plant species. every day new specimens arrive at the laboratory. this air-conditioned room, where the scientists cultivate plants threatened with extinction, is especially important. most come from the páramos. the botanists are trying to arrive at scientific findings and understand possible uses of these species.

belkys: some of these plants have medicinal uses and some are edible. in the andean highlands, there are many useful plants we didn't know you could eat, because they aren't part of our traditional diet. reporter: research director mauricio diazgranados checks the espeletia cuttings. although the species can survive extreme fluctuations in temperature up in the mountains, it's not up to climate change. mauricio: we know that some species will disappear in the next few years. and we're trying to figure out what we can do to rescue these plants before the climate change hits. reporter: colombia's vegetation is extremely rich in biodiversity. researchers are constantly discovering new plants.

the botanists hope that, as more is known about this valuable ecosystem, the realization that it needs better protection will grow. after all, the páramos are the source of life for millions of people in colombia. michaela: europe is still struggling to find a joint migration policy that will stop people dying as they try to reach its shores across the mediterranean. but even the migrants who make it here have a hard time ahead of them, especially unaccompanied minors. often they arrive with nothing but the clothes on their backs and are burdened with the hopes and expectations of their families, who've invested everything in this dangerous journey. a low-key documentary called "neuland, new land, but also unchartered territory," tells their story as they attend a school trying to help young migrants find their feet in a place where nothing and nobody

reminds them of home. reporter: 19-year-old ehsanulah habibi has made it to europe from kabul via pakistan. some of the trip was in an inflatable dingy. -- dinghy. he says he paid $20,000 to reach switzerland. he and his 14 fellow pupils risked a lot to get here. in his integration class, christian zingg teaches the young immigrants the language and customs of this new, foreign country to help them find jobs. the documentary film "neuland" follows their progress over for -- their progress for two years. anna: i found it so fascinating that it was a class that came together from all over the world into one room. it reflects our society. for me, it's a mirror of what's currently happening in the world.

reporter: they bring the crises and wars of the world into this well-ordered classroom in basel. christian: a cv -- does that term mean anything to you? reporter: nazlije aligi has fled serbia. she was a child when the war began in her home country and 17 when her mother died. christian: you came to switzerland because your mother died. reporter: they've lost their families or left them behind. ehsanulah's application for asylum was rejected. he's deeply in debt to the traffickers who got him here, and his family needs financial support. he hasn't been attending school because he has to earn money, even if it's not legal. christian: ehsanulah, you haven't been to school for about three weeks. i know you're working somewhere. as a person, i can understand that. as a teacher, i can't accept it.

reporter: christian zingg is a calming influence in these teenagers' fractured world. he doesn't awaken false hopes, but he works tirelessly to strengthen their belief in themselves and the future. christian: manchester united have won the champions league a few times. but in basel yesterday, basel won. you're like the fc basel. of course you're at a disadvantage, but believe in your opportunities and take every chance you get. anna: i think what's most important about this film is the hope it conveys, and that sometimes it doesn't take much to generate hope. and if you have hope, you can suddenly find a way, and make a lot out of very little. nazlije: i'd like an apprenticeship as a health and social work assistant. reporter: after countless rejections, nazlije lands a work

-- lands end internship -- lands and internship with prospects of an apprenticeship as a geriatric nurse. ehsanullah is allowed to stay in switzerland. his appeal against the rejection of his asylum request is successful. he now attends the school regularly again. at the end, christian zingg sends his protegés out into the world. this is a film that shows what humanity and compassion can make possible. michaela: if only every young person had a teacher like that. wouldn't that be quite something? we'll be back with more stories from around the world next week. join us then or anytime online. but for now, thanks for watching and bye-bye. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

announcer: this program is made possible in part by... historic marion, virginia, home of song of the mountains, a main street community in the heart of the virginia highlands. the ellis family foundation-- encouraging economic revitalization through the restoration of historic buildings in downtown marion, virginia, including the general francis marion hotel. teds-- dedicated to providing strategic talent management solutions. the bank of marion-- your community, your vision, your bank. morehead state university's kentucky center for traditional music is a proud supporter of song of the mountains. emory and henry college-- transforming lives since 1836. bryant label, a proud supporter