Obama Announces Executive Action on Student Loans

President Barack Obama on Monday announced a series of executive steps he was taking to tackle the $1.2 trillion student debt crisis, including the expansion of a federal program that puts a cap on monthly loan payments.

The first of the three steps outlined was the expansion to those with older loans of the Pay As You Earn program, which allows those holding federal student loans to cap their monthly payments at 10 percent of their income. After 20 years of payments, the program forgives any remaining debt.

Welcoming the move, Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders stated, "Millions of American families are struggling to repay student loans. Capping payments at no more than 10 percent of income is one way to help."

Mark Huelsman, Senior Policy Analyst with the public policy organization Demos, writes that the executive action recognizes "that student debt is something that hits households well beyond college age. Around a third of student debt is held by those over 40, and delinquency rates generally rise by age."

Yet the Pay As You Earn program as well as other Income-Based Repayment(IBR) options can be a losing situation for borrowers, he adds. Huelsman explains that "because it lowers monthly payments, it can increase the total amount a borrower pays over the life of the loan, since interest still accrues." This fact underscores the need for those holding student loan debt to be able to refinance their loans at better rates, he adds. That ability, though, must come from Congress.

Such a proposal is expected to be heard in the Senate this week. Sen. Elizabeth Warren's "Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act" would allow student loan holders to refinance at 3.68 percent.

Obama's Presidential Memorandum also includes two other steps: "improving communication strategies" to help loan holders avoid default, and renegotiating with loan servicers like Sallie Mae to help prevent defaults.

A recent analysis by the Institute for College Access & Success' Project on Student Debt found that the average amount of student debt held by a borrower in the class of 2012 was nearly $30,000.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/06/09-6

The Senate Repugs will kill Liz Warrens' student loan re-financing bill.

Quote:

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Senate Republicans on Wednesday filibustered a bill that would have helped people with outstanding student loans refinance their debt at lower interest rates. By a 56-38 vote, the measure failed to clear the 60-vote threshold necessary to advance to debate.


The bill, sponsored by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), would have been funded by raising taxes on those who make more than $1 million.


That the bill would fail was essentially preordained given the Senate's partisan polarization, though Democrats can use the vote to further their midterm pitch that Republicans favor the rich over the middle class.
- - Jon Terbush

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http://theweek.com/speedreads/index/...#axzz34LngOAPe

the onerous cost of higher education amounts to social control. puts young people on the debt/work treadmill before they ever buy cars or homes or start families. answers the question of why people work more and more in the context of rising -- indeed, historically high -- productivity.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Winehole23

http://theweek.com/speedreads/index/...#axzz34LngOAPe

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McConnell called Warren's bill "class warfare" since it raised taxes on the rich. KY Repug voters are as stupid as Repug voters everywhere. They hate Obamacare, but love Kynect! :lol

I guess they're mostly the usual gun fellators, "liberty marans", and "Christian" LGBT/vagina haters.

McConnell also said the bill was useless since it didn't reduce the cost of college, duh, which wasn't the target of the bill, and for which reduction the Repugs have NOTHING TO PROPOSE.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Winehole23

the onerous cost of higher education amounts to social control. puts young people on the debt/work treadmill before they ever buy cars or homes or start families. answers the question of why people work more and more in the context of rising -- indeed, historically high -- productivity.

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rentier capitalism, where everybody is reduced to serfdom under the wealth-extracting financial overlords

minus the Marxist claptrap, the humanistic appeal of this endures: http://www.marxists.org/archive/lafargue/1883/lazy/

better: http://essays.quotidiana.org/chesterton/lying_in_bed/

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Winehole23

http://theweek.com/speedreads/index/...#axzz34LngOAPe

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Maybe people shouldn't go into so much debt...

Is it the tax payers responsibility to bail people out?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Winehole23

the onerous cost of higher education amounts to social control. puts young people on the debt/work treadmill before they ever buy cars or homes or start families. answers the question of why people work more and more in the context of rising -- indeed, historically high -- productivity.

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Well, as long as there is an edless supply of government loans and grants, the education costs will continue to rise.

Maybe the standards for getting these loans should be raised... Reduce the number of available student too these places, so supply and demand can take it's natural course.

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Is it the tax payers responsibility to bail people out?

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Did I say it was?

Anyway, college isn't for everyone, especially now that it tends to reduce all but those who can already afford it to debt peonage.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Winehole23

better: http://essays.quotidiana.org/chesterton/lying_in_bed/

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Bitch slapped by the Great Boutons, WhineHole is so hard working, so UNlazy, he can't look up rentier capitalis, aka, "captalists RENTING money to the serfs (to pay for college, or anything)"

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Well, as long as there is an edless supply of government loans and grants, the education costs will continue to rise.

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guaranteed loans caused tuition to rise? prove it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by boutons_deux

Bitch slapped by the Great Boutons, WhineHole is so hard working, so UNlazy, he can't look up rentier capitalis, aka, "captalists RENTING money to the serfs (to pay for college, or anything)"

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you're slapping the air, you cliche ridden bot. I'm familiar with rentier capitalism. I'd even be willing to bet my use of the term in this forum predates yours.

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Originally Posted by Winehole23

guaranteed loans caused tuition to rise? prove it.

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Common sense supply and demand.

If colleges had to start enticing student enrollment, the costs would go down.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Winehole23

guaranteed loans caused tuition to rise? prove it.

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He can't.

I'm not going to waste my time. I see simple common sense isn't around for you younger people.

common sense is usually neither

When the Repugs "privatized" student loans, the banks made/are making $100Ms off loans GUARANTEED by the hated govt.

And the banks of course say the interest rate is 7%+ because ..... the students are too risky! :lol

So the Repugs basically shovelled guaranteed interest to the banks instead of into the US treasury, aka, wealth transfer upwards.

And when a student loan fails, the govt pays the bank, the bank sells the loan to a collection agency that immediately adds many 10s of % "collection fee" TO THE PRINCIPAL.

Thanks, Repugs.

YET ANOTHER wonderful wealth-sucking, beast-starving misgovernance that America just adores you for.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by boutons_deux

When the Repugs "privatized" student loans, the banks made/are making $100Ms off loans GUARANTEED by the hated govt.

And the banks of course say the interest rate is 7%+ because ..... the students are too risky! :lol

So the Repugs basically shovelled guaranteed interest to the banks instead of into the US treasury, aka, wealth transfer upwards.

And when a student loan fails, the govt pays the bank, the bank sells the loan to a collection agency that immediately adds many 10s of % "collection fee" TO THE PRINCIPAL.

Thanks, Repugs.

YET ANOTHER wonderful wealth-sucking, beast-starving misgovernance that America just adores you for.

---

So, what is your solution?

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Originally Posted by Wild Cobra

So, what is your solution?

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The govt should lend all and only the education loans that it guarantees, at the Fed's lowest rate.

Doctors, dentists, and RNs and other critical govt employees like software system designers, professional project managers, who agree to work for the VA get their education free for 20 years post-education govt employment.

Private lenders, if they are any, get no guarantee.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by boutons_deux

The govt should lend all and only the education loans that it guarantees, at the Fed's lowest rate.

Doctors, dentists, and RNs and other critical govt employees like software system designers, professional project managers, who agree to work for the VA get their education free for 20 years post-education govt employment.

Private lenders, if they are any, get no guarantee.

---

LOL...

Seriously?

You are effectively guaranteeing a union government job with pension for them.

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Originally Posted by Wild Cobra

LOL...

Seriously?

You are effectively guaranteeing a union government job with pension for them.

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so?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by boutons_deux

so?

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LOL...

What about the people who want those jobs, but don't qualify for the low income financing?

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Originally Posted by Wild Cobra

LOL...

What about the people who want those jobs, but don't qualify for the low income financing?

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I didn't anything about low-income, you did. "my" govt loans would be available to all comers

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Originally Posted by boutons_deux

I didn't anything about low-income, you did. "my" govt loans would be available to all comers

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OK, but what happens when not everyone makes the cut? How can you decide who will be qualified to become a doctor beforehand?

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Originally Posted by Wild Cobra

OK, but what happens when not everyone makes the cut? How can you decide who will be qualified to become a doctor beforehand?

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how about making the grades in college and professional school, just like now?

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Originally Posted by boutons_deux

how about making the grades in college and professional school, just like now?

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LOL...

Can you see the future as to if they are going to "make the grade" before they are given the money?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Wild Cobra

LOL...

Can you see the future as to if they are going to "make the grade" before they are given the money?

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If they don't make the grade and don't work for/quit the govt, then they are saddled with the loan, just like any other student.

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Originally Posted by boutons_deux

If they don't make the grade and don't work for/quit the govt, then they are saddled with the loan, just like any other student.

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Ok, so you are going to limit loans to the number of projected jobs available, right?

Limit choices.

Limit competitiveness.

Lowering the competitive bar also lowers expectation and excellence.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Wild Cobra

Ok, so you are going to limit loans to the number of projected jobs available, right?

Limit choices.

Limit competitiveness.

Lowering the competitive bar also lowers expectation and excellence.

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wow, you are fucking stupid

I said nothing about "limiting loans"

Quote:

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Originally Posted by boutons_deux

wow, you are fucking stupid

I said nothing about "limiting loans"

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Ok, then what?

You make 20,000 loans for 10,000 jobs. 2,000 don't cut the mustard. What do you do with the 8,000 who don't have jobs?

why would the govt make 20K loans to fill 10K jobs? damn, you're stupid.

The prize of getting a free university + professional school diploma and a secure govt job for 20 years should be as competitive as getting into an the best state/private universities. The assholes can go into the military.

As we say in the Ivy League, "if you're good enough to get in, you're good enough to stay in" iow, a very tough, competitive selection process guarantees near 100% success rate.

As usual WC is out of his element.

UAS! UAS! UAS!

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Originally Posted by Winehole23

common sense is usually neither

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So you want a correlative chart only to bitch that correlation does not mean causation?

Amirite?

I guess you want proof that making loans more affordable wont add to demand? If so, you'd be an an illogical ass to ask for such a thing, since making loans guaranteed is designed by the govt to specifically increase enrollment in colleges.

And i guess if your endless consumption of that useless rag ironically named "The Economist" didn't teach you about rise in demands effects on prices, then I nor a hair brained Wild Cobra should entertain your ignorance.


tl;dr ..Go fucking read an economics book.

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Originally Posted by boutons_deux

why would the govt make 20K loans to fill 10K jobs? damn, you're stupid.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by boutons_deux

I said nothing about "limiting loans"

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I'm running up my student loans and then skipping overseas

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Originally Posted by Ignignokt

So you want a correlative chart only to bitch that correlation does not mean causation?

Amirite?

I guess you want proof that making loans more affordable wont add to demand? If so, you'd be an an illogical ass to ask for such a thing, since making loans guaranteed is designed by the govt to specifically increase enrollment in colleges.

And i guess if your endless consumption of that useless rag ironically named "The Economist" didn't teach you about rise in demands effects on prices, then I nor a hair brained Wild Cobra should entertain your ignorance.


tl;dr ..Go fucking read an economics book.

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The Bennet hypothesis has neither been proven or rejected and to pretend like supply and demand of gaarunteed loans are the only influences is pretty simpleminded.

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Originally Posted by Th'Pusher

The Bennet hypothesis has neither been proven or rejected and to pretend like supply and demand of gaarunteed loans are the only influences is pretty simpleminded.

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what's simpleminded is creating a strawman. I didn't make such assertion but was responding to a question denying that guaranteed loans don't influence the price of tuition.


RIF

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Originally Posted by Ignignokt

what's simpleminded is creating a strawman. I didn't make such assertion but was responding to a question denying that guaranteed loans don't influence the price of tuition.


RIF

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You're right. You didn't really say anything. Why bother responding? The reality is the Bennet hypothesis has not been proven so it was perfectly reasonable for WH to respond to WC by asking him to prove his assertion.

You added no value. Just emotion.

Anybody that thinks that guaranteed loans don't influence tuition is fucking stupid. Even worse is the huge amount of dollars that "education" mills like ITT Tech suck out of dumb asses that think borrowing $30,000 easy money for a 2 year "associates degree" in "computers" is gonna get them a real job just because they like to play video games.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CosmicCowboy

Anybody that thinks that guaranteed loans don't influence tuition is fucking stupid. Even worse is the huge amount of dollars that "education" mills like ITT Tech suck out of dumb asses that think borrowing $30,000 easy money for a 2 year "associates degree" in "computers" is gonna get them a real job just because they like to play video games.

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Solid fact based analysis from CC as always....

Solid bullshit from the Pusher as always.

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Originally Posted by CosmicCowboy

Solid bullshit from the Pusher as always.

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No bullshit. Bennet floated the hypothesis 30 years ago and it been neither proven nor disproven. Just the facts.

How old are you?

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Originally Posted by CosmicCowboy

How old are you?

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Why?

Seriously. You support these for profit "education" institutions that rip off the student loan system and then leave their "graduates" two years later floundering around unemployed with a worthless degree?

Are you an ITT grad?

Same goes for the "legitimate" universities that funnel kids through in worthless degree plans. $120K for a "humanities" degree? Give me a fucking break. Thats just an example. Those "easy" degree plan lets you party your ass off for 4 years while the university rakes in the cash and you graduate with zero job opportunities.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CosmicCowboy

Seriously. You support these for profit "education" institutions that rip off the student loan system and then leave their "graduates" two years later floundering around unemployed with a worthless degree?

Are you an ITT grad?

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No. I think those are bullshit and should be regulated out of existence.

You and WC both claimed, for all intents and purposes, that the well established Bennet hypothesis has been verified and is basically irrefutable. I was simply pointing out that that is incorrect.

I've got a niece that is damn near thirty that she and her boyfriend have been living off student loans for YEARS and she still hasn't graduated with shit. I'm talking for paying for housing, food, motorcycles, etc. with student loans. The whole game is to pass enough courses to qualify for more loans.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CosmicCowboy

I've got a niece that is damn near thirty that she and her boyfriend have been living off student loans for YEARS and she still hasn't graduated with shit. I'm talking for paying for housing, food, motorcycles, etc. with student loans. The whole game is to pass enough courses to qualify for more loans.

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Your niece and her boyfriend sound like deadbeats.

Seriously? How old are you really?

It's OK if you are a teenager and haven't even grown chest hair yet. I might cut you a little more slack for being oblivious.

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Originally Posted by CosmicCowboy

How old are you?

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You met him just last summer

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Drachen

You met him just last summer

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Oops. Must have been the butter beer. Plus Maalox distracted me.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Th'Pusher

You're right. You didn't really say anything. Why bother responding? The reality is the Bennet hypothesis has not been proven so it was perfectly reasonable for WH to respond to WC by asking him to prove his assertion.

You added no value. Just emotion.

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No, the value added was a point of view to cause more thinking.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CosmicCowboy

Anybody that thinks that guaranteed loans don't influence tuition is fucking stupid. Even worse is the huge amount of dollars that "education" mills like ITT Tech suck out of dumb asses that think borrowing $30,000 easy money for a 2 year "associates degree" in "computers" is gonna get them a real job just because they like to play video games.

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I agree with that in general, but ITT tech is a good route for people technically inclined to get good jobs. I have seen it. Some of the best people I have seen coming into automation that uses robotics have come from ITT.

I think the real problem is that our education system indoctrinates. One of the ideas indoctrinated is that today, students think they can learn any field they with to work. It simply doesn't work that way with most field. The entire life experiences, and maybe genetics, makes people more suited for some fields than others. If there are an overage of people in such a field, the ones not suted for it may never find work in that field.

Bush, Obama, and all the other pieces of shit in DC should just nut up and foot the bill on this. They destroyed America and the economy with 9/11 and bullshit wars. They should have to pay out of their own pockets to fix this.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Wild Cobra

I agree with that in general, but ITT tech is a good route for people technically inclined to get good jobs. I have seen it. Some of the best people I have seen coming into automation that uses robotics have come from ITT.

I think the real problem is that our education system indoctrinates. One of the ideas indoctrinated is that today, students think they can learn any field they with to work. It simply doesn't work that way with most field. The entire life experiences, and maybe genetics, makes people more suited for some fields than others. If there are an overage of people in such a field, the ones not suted for it may never find work in that field.

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Sweet Jesus WC. No, ITT is a terrible option for everybody. You have to use all but about 2000 of your legal loan limit that is meant for a bachelor's and all you come away with is a *nationally* accredited associates. I hate University of Phoenix, but at least you leave with less debt, and a bachelor's degree that is regionally accredited. But please, keep defending those thieves. Seems to be your M. O.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Winehole23

Did I say it was?

Anyway, college isn't for everyone, especially now that it tends to reduce all but those who can already afford it to debt peonage.

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Is this really true, though? I finished my undergrad with an amount of manageable debt that is equivalent to buying a car. A nice car, but a car and not anywhere near the debt horror stories. I won't pay a time for my graduate education (and in many fields, no one should - mostly science and engineering though).

People have low cost options for tuition closer to home. Its probably in everyone's economic interest to help those out with current crippling debt, but by the same token we need to tell students that going to a local state school and community colleges prior to that is a damn fine way to save a lot of money. You shouldn't spend 200k to go to an out of state private school that isn't even a very good school.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Drachen

Sweet Jesus WC. No, ITT is a terrible option for everybody. You have to use all but about 2000 of your legal loan limit that is meant for a bachelor's and all you come away with is a *nationally* accredited associates. I hate University of Phoenix, but at least you leave with less debt, and a bachelor's degree that is regionally accredited. But please, keep defending those thieves. Seems to be your M. O.

---

I've seen several good people with sharp technical minds use ITT as a way to get their foot in the door to great jobs.

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Originally Posted by MannyIsGod

Is this really true, though?

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it's the trend. it's bad enough that humanities majors should do the cost/benefit analysis instead of leaping in with both feet. community colleges are a good value, state schools less and less so.

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Originally Posted by Winehole23

it's the trend. it's bad enough that humanities majors should do the cost/benefit analysis instead of leaping in with both feet. community colleges are a good value, state schools less and less so.

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One of the best ways I've seen is to get the more common classes done in a community college, then go to a university.

You know what real student loan relief would be?

Cap student loans for future students so universities have to lower prices.

Slash interest rates on existing loans.

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Originally Posted by angrydude

You know what real student loan relief would be?

Cap student loans for future students so universities have to lower prices.

Slash interest rates on existing loans.

---

How about raising the GPA and SAT requirements to reduce the number who qualify?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by angrydude

You know what real student loan relief would be?

Cap student loans for future students so universities have to lower prices.

Slash interest rates on existing loans.

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Student loans are capped.

Federal student loans are capped for undergrads at around 50k and even getting that high requires meeting certain criteria. When you hear about people in dire straits, they have taken out private loans (and lots of them).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Winehole23

it's the trend. it's bad enough that humanities majors should do the cost/benefit analysis instead of leaping in with both feet. community colleges are a good value, state schools less and less so.

---

Its not just humanities majors. Everyone should do that. Things definitely have changed in that a degree in and of itself doesn't open the doors that it did 30+ years ago. Now you need to have a useful degree. But earnings potential for all degrees is still much higher than those with just high school diplomas or lower. Students going in need to be given a dose of reality on what you should expect out of an education and maybe not as much "you can do whatever you want".

Maybe college won't be as romantic as it has in the past and a lot more pragmatic, but it is what it is. I would like to see a really good analysis on the debt problems we have though. For all the supply and demand bullshit people like just toss around without actual proof, those people rarely mention the drastic reduction in state funding most institutions have faced which has also contributed to tuition increases. Even so, there are affordable choices that will earn you a lot of money in the future even if you have to go into some debt now. Students will just have to make smart decisions.

The 37 Senators Who Today Voted for Millionaires Over Students

Sen. McConnell continues to obstruct democracy in the name of special interests. Today these 37 senators joined him:

Lamar Alexander (Tenn.)
Saxby Chambliss (Ga.)
John Cornyn (Texas)
Michael Crapo (Idaho)
Michael Enzi (Wyo.)
Charles Grassley (Iowa)
Orrin Hatch (Utah)
James Inhofe (Okla.)
John McCain (Ariz.)
Mitch McConnell (Ky.)
Pat Roberts (Kan.)
Jefferson Sessions (Ala.)
Richard Shelby (Ala.)
Roy Blunt (Mo.)
John Boozman (Ark.)
Richard Burr (N.C.)
Jeff Flake (Ariz.)
John Isakson (Ga.)
Mark Kirk (Ill.)
Robert Portman (Ohio)
Patrick Toomey (Pa.)
David Vitter (La.)
Roger Wicker (Miss.)
John Thune (S.D.)
Thomas Coburn (Okla.)
Daniel Coats (Ind.)
Dean Heller (Nev.)
John Barrasso (Wyo.)
Mike Johanns (Neb.)
James Risch (Ind.)
Marco Rubio (Fla.)
Rand Paul (Ky.)
John Hoeven (N.D.)
Mike Lee (Utah)
Ron Johnson (Wis.)
Deb Fischer (Neb.)
Ted Cruz (Texas)

In the end, only three Republican senators stood with Democrats and the 40 million Americans plagued with student loan debt:

Susan Collins of Maine,

Bob Corker of Tennessee and

Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/ite...-over-students

All y'all rednecks and Repug fellators tell me again all fantastic stuff YOUR Repugs have done for America!

Why did Harry Reid vote no?

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Originally Posted by Wild Cobra

Why did Harry Reid vote no?

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why isn't HR in the no list?

I'm not going to take the time right now to read the bill, but here it is:

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-1...13s2432pcs.pdf

Quote:

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Originally Posted by boutons_deux

why isn't HR in the no list?

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Because your precious source lied and didn't include him. Here's the official record:

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LI...n=2&vote=00185

Don't you ever verify the bullshit material you post before posting it?

You assholes ought to know better than to mess with the great boutons

Reid voted against as procedural tactic so the dems can bring the bill back over and over and over as they have promised

Bitch. Be slapped. :LOL

Quote:

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Originally Posted by boutons_deux

You assholes ought to know better than to mess with the great boutons

Reid voted against as procedural tactic so the dems can bring the bill back over and over and over as they have promised

Bitch. Be slapped. :LOL

---

LOL...

Idiot. bitch slap yourself.

You didn't know that when you posted it, and it's at the bottom of your linked material. I was wondering how long it would take for you to discover the truth. Goes to prove you link stuff without reading or understanding what you link, just because is suits your beliefs.

I'm not good at legaleze, but it appears the bill:

1) pays bankers the money defaulted on past private loans.

2) creates another bureaucracy of peanut counters that loan institutions must send personal data to.

3) spend money to alert all borrowers of refinancing options.

4) require borrowers to go to loan counseling (who pays for it?)

5) Introduces a millionaire tax.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by boutons_deux

The govt should lend all and only the education loans that it guarantees, at the Fed's lowest rate.

Doctors, dentists, and RNs and other critical govt employees like software system designers, professional project managers, who agree to work for the VA get their education free for 20 years post-education govt employment.

Private lenders, if they are any, get no guarantee.

---

HERE IS A THOUGHT LOWER PRICE OF COLLEDGE AND NO STUDENET GO IN DEBT TO GET A STUPID DEGREE THAT IS WORTHLESS
SO MANYWORTHLESS DEGREES OUT THERE

Quote:

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Originally Posted by boutons_deux

why would the govt make 20K loans to fill 10K jobs? damn, you're stupid. .

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TALKING ABOUT GOVERMENT

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ducks

HERE IS A THOUGHT LOWER PRICE OF COLLEDGE AND NO STUDENET GO IN DEBT TO GET A STUPID DEGREE THAT IS WORTHLESS
SO MANYWORTHLESS DEGREES OUT THERE

---

How are you going to do that Nixon?

The One Thing Obama Didn't Say About Student Loan Repayment

President Obama made big news today for student loan borrowers. He said he'll use his executive power to expand a program called Pay As You Earn, which limits borrowers' monthly debt payments to 10 percent of their discretionary income. Under the program, loans don't just get less expensive; they can actually disappear. The balance of a loan is forgiven after 20 years — 10 years if the borrower works in public service (for government or a nonprofit).

Pay As You Earn has been around since 2012. It's inspired by the higher ed finance systems in countries like Australia, where university students pay nothing upfront and a percentage of their income after graduation. With the announcement, Obama extends eligibility for the program to an older group of borrowers: those who borrowed before October 2007 and have not borrowed since October 2011.

This is the kind of announcement that makes for feel-good headlines, but, once the news cycle has passed, how much will have really changed? The fact is, there's been a serious flaw with the program up to this point: few people have actually signed up for it.

Thirty-seven million Americans are currently shouldering some kind of student loan debt. It's difficult to calculate exactly how many of them would be eligible for the Pay As You Earn expansion, but a White House fact sheet says "most" of today's borrowers would qualify. If you look at public service loan forgiveness alone, about a quarter of the workforce qualifies.

As we said, Pay As You Earn isn't exactly new, and last year, enrollment did grow almost 40 percent. But the total number of borrowers now signed up is still just 1.6 million. Remember — 37 million Americans are carrying some kind of student debt. That means quite likely the vast majority of those who could get help paying off their loans just aren't asking for it.

Why Not?

It seems people don't enroll in Pay As You Earn for two reasons. I hear from struggling borrowers all the time who are either

a) unaware of the program or

b) have had serious trouble signing up for it.

When it comes to awareness, the government simply hasn't promoted the program the way it did, say, the rollout of the Affordable Care Act.

And, anecdotally, borrowers who do hear about the program and try to sign up often run into obstacles and obfuscation from the companies that service their loans.

These loan servicers, led by Sallie Mae, are private-sector middlemen in the student loan business. They collect the borrowers' payments and fees. On the back end, they also repackage and securitize the loans. Many servicers used to originate federally subsidized student loans themselves, before President Obama cut them out of that side of the business in 2009.

But these lenders turned federal contractors still have a lot of control over borrowers. And it's not in their short-term business interests to lower monthly payments. Even if borrowers fall behind on those payments — or go into default — servicers still get paid handsomely.

An investigation by the Huffington Post last year found that Sallie Mae had a surprisingly low number of borrowers enrolled in income-based repayment. The loan giant handles 40 percent of all federal student loans (by loan volume) but represented just 18 percent of borrowers enrolled in Pay As You Earn.

The Obama administration acknowledges the problems in the fine print of its announcement today. One response: The government says it will partner with Intuit and H&R Block, telling borrowers about Pay As You Earn when they're doing their taxes.

The Department of Education also plans to "renegotiate its contracts with federal loan servicers to strengthen financial incentives to help borrowers repay their loans on time, lower payments for servicers when loans enter delinquency or default, and increase the value of borrowers' customer satisfaction when allocating new loan volume." Translation: The feds will penalize servicers who delay or deny help or otherwise incur complaints from borrowers, by steering new business away from them.

The expansion of Pay As You Earn won't achieve its stated goal unless this part of the work is taken seriously. Because, up to this point, borrowers haven't just had to be in debt to enroll ... they had to be savvy, resourceful and downright persistent.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2014/06/09/320351501/the-one-thing-obama-didn-t-say-about-student-loan-repayment?utm_source=npr_newsletter&utm_medium=ema il&utm_content=20140615&utm_campaign=mostemailed&u tm_term=nprnews

Of course, the Repugs would, if they could, block PAYE and any Exec branch attempts to promote and expand it.

Quote:

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The cost of obtaining a university education in the U.S. has soared 12 fold over the past three decades, a sign the educational system is in need of reform, according to lawmakers in both parties.


The CHART OF THE DAY shows college tuition and fees have surged 1,120 percent since records began in 1978, four times faster than the increase in the consumer price index. Medical expenses have climbed 601 percent, while the price of food has increased 244 percent over the same period.


“Soaring tuition and shrinking incomes are making college less and less affordable,” Senator Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat and chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said in an e-mailed statement. “For millions of young people, rising college costs are putting the American dream on hold, or out of reach.”

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-0...f-the-day.html

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Winehole23

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-0...f-the-day.html

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The number full, tenured professors is being reduced (cost), replaced by adjunct professors, grad students on shitty wages, often piecework (paid per course taught, aka "the gig economy"), while admin headcount and salaries have exploded, along with building 5-star dorms to attract a diminishing number of baby boomer kids.

Student aid also way down, replaced with foreign student paying 100% of their college costs, and "affirmative action" of admitting wealthy students demanding little or no financial aid.

The Banksters' Great Depression is still holding down state tax revenue meaning state financing of public colleges is down.

iow, colleges, even public colleges, have become an ATM for college presidents+full time admin staff, while the actual teaching is short-changed. Sort of a class warfare, college administrators self-enrichment vs college teachers/teaching.

just more data: America is fucked and unfuckable (money is the root of all fuckings)

College is the greatest scam in American history.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by boutons_deux

The number full, tenured professors is being reduced (cost), replaced by adjunct professors, grad students on shitty wages, often piecework (paid per course taught, aka "the gig economy"), while admin headcount and salaries have exploded, along with building 5-star dorms to attract a diminishing number of baby boomer kids.

Student aid also way down, replaced with foreign student paying 100% of their college costs, and "affirmative action" of admitting wealthy students demanding little or no financial aid.

The Banksters' Great Depression is still holding down state tax revenue meaning state financing of public colleges is down.

iow, colleges, even public colleges, have become an ATM for college presidents+full time admin staff, while the actual teaching is short-changed. Sort of a class warfare, college administrators self-enrichment vs college teachers/teaching.

just more data: America is fucked and unfuckable (money is the root of all fuckings)

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This is one of the rare posts by boutons that I actually agree with most of what he said.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jacob1983

College is the greatest scam in American history.

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In some ways, but I think saying that is too broad.

The problem with the system is that there are only so many jobs that need a college education. We probably have twice as many students going to college than we have jobs for. This just about means that unless you can pay for college, you will be lucky to do better than flipping burgers. This is how it becomes a scam. the excess of available money gives an overage of college students. Supply and demand means these jobs will just pay less. Then we have students never getting good enough jobs to pay back their debt. Then we have legislation like what was proposed in the OP, that does little more financially than paying bankers the money students defaulted on.

When well the demonrats stop scamming the American people?

I think I will change my mind.

It is a big scam.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CosmicCowboy

Seriously. You support these for profit "education" institutions that rip off the student loan system and then leave their "graduates" two years later floundering around unemployed with a worthless degree?

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This is not a completely accurate description. Whether or not an ITT type degree will be beneficial is entirely up to the individual. When I worked at AMD they hired their wafer techs almost exclusively from ITT. Some were good and moved up to maintenance or process techs, the best ones became techs for vendors like Speedfam making close to 6 figures (and that was 20 yrs ago). Two of my friends are engineers at an SA tech company and they hire their techs from ITT. They start them off cheap and if they are any good they pay them well to keep them. Another friend's son went to ITT and he's doing very well now working at Rackspace. The only problem with these for profit schools are that they will find away to pass anyone who shows up so they can keep getting those dollars so it's up to the employers to sort through them to find the good ones. I don't think they have any entrance requirements at these schools so yeah they are sucking money from people who are destined for the fast food industry but that doesn't mean those associate degrees are worthless, just that some of the people getting them are. I don't think that's much different than four year universities like UTSA. At USAA they had an intern program for CS majors from UTSA. These were supposed to be top GPA students and some were good and some of them probably couldn't write Hello World without help.

IIT tech school goes back a long way, well before the explosion pure-shit for-profit "colleges", so ITT is probably one of the more excludable from the current crop, although I bet they've jumped on that govt-guaranteed gravy train, too.

A College Major Matters Even More in a Recession


Graduating into a recession is unlucky. The bad luck haunts young people for years,studies have shown, affecting their salaries, employment prospects and even theirhealth and happiness.

But recessions don’t treat all college graduates equally. Those who major in subjects that command higher salaries, like engineering and finance, increase their earnings advantage when they graduate into a recession. And those who major in subjects that lead to lower-paying jobs, like philosophy and music, are even more disadvantaged than in normal economic times.

see the graph:

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/06/21...recession.html

on average, an college degree is still a huge positive diff in lifetime earnings (uneducated people are not blocked from and can do well, but ON AVERAGE, they don't)

My ideal would be that academic state/community college would be free, but with highly competitive admissions.

Then having gotten a broad-based ACADEMIC education, one would be faced with more competition to be accepted in a post-grad, also-free VOCATIONAL college.

It’s Official: The Boomerang Kids Won’t Leave

One in five people in their 20s and early 30s is currently living with his or her parents. And 60 percent of all young adults receive financial support from them. That’s a significant increase from a generation ago, when only one in 10 young adults moved back home and few received financial support. The common explanation for the shift is that people born in the late 1980s and early 1990s came of age amid several unfortunate and overlapping economic trends. Those who graduated college as the housing market and financial system were imploding faced the highest debt burden of any graduating class in history. Nearly 45 percent of 25-year-olds, for instance, have outstanding loans, with an average debt above $20,000. (Kasinecz still has about $60,000 to go.) And more than half of recent college graduates are unemployed or underemployed, meaning they make substandard wages in jobs that don’t require a college degree.

According to Lisa B. Kahn, an economist at Yale University, the negative impact of graduating into a recession never fully disappears. Even 20 years later, the people who graduated into the recession of the early ’80s were making substantially less money than people lucky enough to have graduated a few years afterward, when the economy was booming.

Some may hope that the boomerang generation represents an unfortunate but temporary blip — that the class of 2015 will be able to land great jobs out of college, and that they’ll reach financial independence soon after reaching the drinking age. But the latest recession was only part of the boomerang generation’s problem. In reality, it simply amplified a trend that had been growing stealthily for more than 30 years. Since 1980, the U.S. economy has been destabilized by a series of systemic changes — the growth of foreign trade, rapid advances in technology, changes to the tax code, among others — that have affected all workers but particularly those just embarking on their careers.

In 1968, for instance, a vast majority of 20-somethings were living independent lives; more than half were married. But over the past 30 years, the onset of sustainable economic independence has been steadily receding. By 2007, before the recession even began, fewer than one in four young adults were married, and 34 percent relied on their parents for rent.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/06/22...ont-leave.html

Thanks, Banksters/VRWC. Your FUCKING gifts keep on FUCKING for decades.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jacob1983

College is the greatest scam in American history.

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Only if you go thinking that pursuing a shit degree to avoid any difficult study will do you any good.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SnakeBoy

Only if you go thinking that pursuing a shit degree to avoid any difficult study will do you any good.

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which degrees are shit?

how about magna cum laude in history or english lit or philosophy? all shit, right?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by boutons_deux

which degrees are shit?

how about magna cum laude in history or english lit or philosophy? all shit, right?

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If you stop at a bachelors...yeah all shit.

Federal Crackdown On For-Profit Colleges Claims Its First Victory

A for-profit college company with a track record of dubious marketing practices is now set tonarrowly avoid closing its doors forever after agreeing to the government’s terms for continued financing. The agreement could bring changes in how Corinthian Colleges and other for-profit colleges that rely on taxpayer money do business.

After years of lawsuits and investigations into how the company marketed its schools to students, the Department of Education (DOE) restricted the Corinthian’s access to federal funds earlier this year, instituting a three-week waiting period before federal payments could be distributed to Corinthian businesses. Corinthian, which gets $4 out of every $5 from federal education financing programs, appeared to be heading into a death spiral late last week when it announced that the restrictions had left it on the edge of insolvency.

Under Monday’s agreement, however, the company will reportedly get the bridge funding it needs long enough to act on several DOE requests, including closing some of its schools and bringing in an independent auditor for its remaining operations. The DOE is weighingwhether or not to reauthorize several Corinthian-owned schools for participation in the federal financial aid system, according to the Associated Press. The company will attempt to sell off significant parts of its 107-campus network.

The stricter DOE financing policy that forced Corinthian to bow to government demands was put in place after the company failed to cooperate fully with federal inquiries into its schools. Some of those inquiries involved Everest College, one of three separate for-profit higher education brands owned by Corinthian. Everest employees in six states told the Huffington Post that they were encouraged to falsify data on graduate job placement. The California attorney general has sued Everest for marketing fraud, arguing that the company mislead prospective students about how its graduates fared in the job market.

Worse, Everest officials paid nearby companies to hire their graduates for just long enough to make the school’s statistics look better, then let them go. One Everest campus in Georgia paid companies $2,000 a head to keep Everest graduates on staff for 30 days. One alum named Eric Parms racked up about $17,000 in loan debt to earn a certification from its HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) program, only to get placed into a temporary make-work job at a local contractor that was taking money from Everest to turn people like Parms into positive statistics on the school’s marketing materials.

The same money that Parms and peers now owe to student loan companies and the government went first to Corinthian as revenue. The company gets $1.4 billion a year in federal financial aid money, according to the Wall Street Journal.

While details of the ultimate resolution of Corinthian’s near demise remain in flux, the government’s stark actions against a company that was allegedly fleecing both students and the federal financial aid system should send a signal to the rest of the for-profit college industry. The graduate job attainment figures that allegedly drove Corinthian to take up fraudulent tactics are going to be a key measure of whether or not companies can continue to do business with the government going forward. For-profit schools generally fair worse on those metrics than traditional institutions, and one market analysis late last year suggested that one in five for-profit schools will fail to meet new requirements.

http://thinkprogress.org/education/2...rofit-college/

Man, I see in Fight Club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see it squandered. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables – slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars, but we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.

Senate Once Again Blocks Bill To Allow Borrowers To Refinance Federal And Private Student Loans

A bill that would have allowed millions of private and federal student loan borrowers to refinance their debts to the lower rate currently being issued on new federal and private student loans was once again blocked in the Senate.

The Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act, which was first introduced by Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren in May, previously failed a Senate provisional hurdle in June.

The Hill reports that on Tuesday afternoon Warren asked for unanimous consent to vote on her bill. However, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas objected unless an open amendment process would be allowed, a move which Warren said she couldn’t agree to.

“Life is about choices. Each of us have made a choice on education, like where we’re going to go to school and what we’re going to study,” Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois said in a statement. “There was a choice made on the Senate Floor today…to ignore students across America who are struggling to make ends meet because of overwhelming amounts of student loan debt.”

The bill would have allowed federal and private student loan borrowers to refinance to rates set for first-time borrowers;

3.86% for Undergraduate Direct Loans,

5.41% for Graduate Loans, and

6.41% for PLUS Loans taken out by a student’s parents.

Borrowers looking to refinance their student loans would have to be current on their payments and meet debt-to-income ratios that would have been set by the Department of Education.

In addition to refinancing student loans, the bill set forth a number of tax reforms intended to enact what is called the “Buffett Rule,” a reference to billionaire Warren Buffett’s statement that he shouldn’t pay lower taxes than his secretary.

http://consumerist.com/2014/09/17/se...student-loans/

Quote:

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Warren asked for unanimous consent to vote on her bill, S. 2432, but Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) objected unless there would be an open amendment process. Warren said she couldn't agree to unlimited amendments.

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you don't have to be as smart as EW

1. to know that the Repugs would attach totally irrelevant, extreme unpassable amendments to kill the bill.

2. to know that the Repugs don't GAF about the student debt crisis, keeping those interest payments flowing to bankers, and hounding indebted Americans to and beyond the grave.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by boutons_deux

you don't have to be as smart as EW

1. to know that the Repugs would attach totally irrelevant, extreme unpassable amendments to kill the bill.

2. to know that the Repugs don't GAF about the student debt crisis, keeping those interest payments flowing to bankers, and hounding indebted Americans to and beyond the grave.

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Believe as you wish. Afterall, you have Common Dreams with other losers.

Occupy Wall Street takes executive action on student loans:

http://fortune.com/2014/09/17/occupy...ent-loan-debt/

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Winehole23

Occupy Wall Street takes executive action on student loans:

http://fortune.com/2014/09/17/occupy...ent-loan-debt/

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that wonderful, great move, but less than a pinprick on the disaster of $1T+ outstanding.

btw, St Ronnie and his VRWC hitmen got the student load shitball rolling

(VRWC useful idiot) Ronald Reagan stuck it to millennials: A college debt history lesson no one tells

The students Reagan loathed were the beneficiaries of a consensus that paired the GI Bill with the post-Sputnik explosion of higher education to offer no- to low-cost access to public institutions, and aid to those who needed it to make private college possible. Students were not expected to shoulder the burden of their educations alone, and this freed them to explore who they wanted to be and the kind of America in which they wanted to live. There were many adults, of course, who despised them for just this freedom, and powerful forces terrified of the changes they saw coming.

By the time Reagan was elected to the nation’s highest office a decade and a half later, these powers had devised perfect tools to make sure the spirit of 1960s protest would never again erupt on campus.

During Reagan’s two terms as president,

dedicated funding for outright grants-in-aid decreased,

federal guidelines pushed individual loans,

and private bill collectors were brought in to ensure that the hardest kind of debt to escape waswhatever you took on for your education.

Even more important was the shift in tone and expectation. Public goods became private services, and by the end of the 1980s, the anti-tax, infra-structure-starving, neoliberal Weltanschauung meant that as states cut their budgets, support for higher education was thrown into a cage match with every other necessary public good.

http://www.salon.com/2014/07/05/rona..._no_one_tells/

================

My students pay too much for college. Blame Reagan.

Today’s student aid crisis has its roots in the 1980s. In 1981, the Reagan administration, with a coalition of congressional Republicans and conservative Democrats, pushed through Congress a combination of tax- and budget-cutting measures.

No federal program suffered deeper cuts than student aid. Spending on higher education was slashed by some 25 percent between 1980 and 1985.

In raw dollar figures, cuts totaled $594 million in student assistance and $338 million in Pell grants. Students eligible for grant assistance freshmen year had to take out student loans to cover their second year. For middle-class families, eligibility was changed as well.

Low-cost, low-interest, subsidized federal loans were limited to families with household incomes of less than $32,000, regardless of family size.

Effectively, these changes shifted the federal government’s focus from providing students higher education grants to providing loans.

How did college students and their families find themselves in the budgetary crosshairs of the Reagan administration?

Some in the White House and the Office of Management and Budget argued cutting aid would reduce the deficit, while others averred that less money meant less federal intrusion in individuals’ lives. Still others insisted government support of students upset the natural order of the nuclear family, supplanting parents and their obligation to provide.

These various perspectives coalesced around a shared view: students were “tax eaters … [and] a drain and drag on the American economy.” Student aid “isn’t a proper obligation of the taxpayer,” Reagan’s OMB Director David Stockman told Congress.

Reagan administration Education Secretary Terrel Bell would later write in his memoir that

students needing aid were part of the problem,

not very different from other “undeserving” Americans,

no different than the “welfare queen,”

the out-of-work father drawing unemployment insurance,

the poor families on Medicaid,

the elderly in need of Medicare or even farmers relying on subsidies.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/09/02/my-students-pay-too-much-for-college-blame-reagan/

Thanks, Repugs, and all y'all Repug voters!

and voodoo-economics/trickle-down/supply-sider St Ronnie TRIPLED THE NATIONAL DEBT TO $3T

Feds Sue Corinthian Colleges For Pushing More Than $560M In Predatory Loans On Students

Tens of thousands of students were duped by Corinthian Colleges Inc. into taking out costly predatory, and often financially devastating, private student loans to finance their post-secondary education, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau alleges in a recently filed lawsuit against the large for-profit education company.

An investigation by the CFPB found that since July 2011 Corinthian has lured tens of thousands of students at Heald College, Everest University, and WyoTech to take out private student loans to cover expensive tuition costs by advertising bogus job prospects and career services.

The CFPB alleges in a lawsuit [PDF] that Corinthian then used illegal debt collection tactics to harass students into paying back those loans while still in school.

To protect current and past students of the Corinthian schools, the Bureau is seeking to halt these practices and is requesting the court to grant relief to the students who collectively have taken out more than $569 million in school issued private student loans known as Genesis Loans.

The CFPB seeks full redress of all private student loans made since July 21, 2011, including those that have been paid off.

http://consumerist.com/2014/09/16/fe...y-loan-scheme/

CFPB? just another govt regulatory/enforcement agency the Repugs keep trying to defund and kill.