STUDENT LOANS

Last week, President Obama rolled out a proposal to induce lowering of the states’ universities charges to students and parents by tying federal assistance to such lowering.  Political and other implications of such plans putting heat on a major Democratic power base are examined by Kevin Carey in a New Republic blog.  http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/100140/obama-education-strategy-state-union-college-tuition

For more stories on the president’s attack on college costs see  http://news.google.com/news/story?ncl=http://www.dailynebraskan.com/mobile/news/obama-addresses-tuition-and-financial-aid-in-state-of-the-union-1.2691802&hl=en&geo=us

Save Our Students, the student loan borrowers organization requested Obama to take the bully pulpit against those skyrocketing prices many moons ago. (See, e.g., our postings for August 31, 2010 and September 26, 2010.) The states’ lowering charges for public colleges will help cure the student loan problem for prospective borrowers.  See the overall plan of S.O.S. and join us, free, to aid in our campaign at http://lowerstudentloans.net

One of the most helpful of existing programs for student loan forgiveness is the one based on public service. When the borrower who completes ten years of certain public service and makes all her loan payments all of (the remaining balance of) the loan is forgiven.  See the Department of Education explanation of how it works.  http://studentaid.ed.gov/PORTALSWebApp/students/english/PSF.jsp

Save Our Students, the student loan borrowers’ organization whose blog this is, favors more and better forgiveness programs to help defuse the current crisis of too many people with overly large student loans.  Please join us, free, and help, and see our own forgiveness plan.  http://lowerstudentloans.net

A federal judge in New York has certified a class action against SLM Corporation, popularly known as “Sally Mae,” by persons who purchased stock in it.  As described by the Courthouse News blog, the stockholders claim that management’s disclosure of difficulties Sally Mae was having with its private loan portfolio was insufficient under the securities laws, notably that the company was making many more bad loans than what one could tell from its disclosure documents. http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/01/30/43445.htm

If the claims are true, they point to another dangerous instance of the capital markets being duped to keep rolling the stupendous growth in the volume of student loans. Also, if true, they illustrate who can be motivated to worsen the problem of large loans to people who cannot pay them back.

In a San Francisco Chronicle blog, Greg McFarlane presents some select data on trends accompanying the staggering rise in college costs, including the for-profit colleges with huge enrollment and no campus.  http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/01/19/investopedia71184.DTL

Professor Daniel Jelski posts on a Forbes blog the way the college of the future will be and why the overly expensive, cartelish, current models of colleges are doomed.  What is more, he does it well.  http://www.forbes.com/sites/ccap/2012/01/19/a-free-college-education-for-all/3/

Hard to understand how those currently responsible for public colleges believe that they can just keep running up the charges at those colleges at the highest rate of things sold in the American economy without dire consequences.  No secret that Save Our Students, the student loan borrowers organization whose blog this is, favors bringing the costs of college way down, so such large student loans need not come into existence, however much lenders (now including the federal government) enjoy getting interest on that trillion dollars of student loans.  S.O.S. favors, too, relief for existing borrowers by more and better programs for forgiveness.  Please help by joining now, free.   http://lowerstudentloans.net

Lamenting over the shortage of paying jobs for her contemporary loan-burdened college graduates, Carmel Lobello notes that a new stud7 indicates that the time she spent earning a degree may at least help ward off middle-aged-mushheadedness. http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/175211/education-may-help-keep-your-brain-young/

Well and good, says Save Our Students, but the fight against overly large student loans ought to continue. Please help by joining S.O.S. http://lowerstudentloans.net

AP reports that Andrew Cuomo’s proposed 2012-13 budget for State University of New York and City University of New York leaves state financial support at the same or lower levels and begins raising tuition from $5,000 to $6,500 over five years. http://online.wsj.com/article/AP52f5171e5d9b4c7088cf3ab6844060f2.html

This is just more of the same bad behavior by the states toward the public colleges that will continue to lead to overly large student loans and overburden on America’s intelligentsia.  Please help us fight this by joining S.O.S. free  http://lowerstudentloans.net

FinAid provides some fine links for your getting accurate information on several kinds of existing programs for forgiving student loans. http://www.finaid.org/loans/forgiveness.phtml

What you will see also is that there is an obvious possibility to add more to those existing programs to add safety valves to the pressure building up from skyrocketing college costs and commensurate, large student loan balances.  Save Our Students, the student loan borrowers organization whose blog this is, has such a broad plan. Please help us in the fight by joining free now.  http://lowerstudentloans.net

An interesting and innovative proposal is made on Swans blog  by Manuel Garcia, Jr.  for a National Students Recovery Bank for refinancing student loans to make repayment more practical.  http://www.swans.com/library/art18/mgarci38.html

Something must be done.  The focus ought to be on how to give relief to student loan borrowers, not whether, and to reduce the need for such large loans. Pleas help by joining Save Our Students, free http://lowerstudentloans.net

According to the blog Polliticalnews.me, President Obama’s announcement in October, 2011 that he is changing the rules on income based repayment of student loans to limit payments to 10% of income (instead of 15%) and provide forgiveness after 20  years (instead of 25) seems to have degenerated into a goal of the administration rather than action that it took. http://politicalnews.me/?id=10811&pg=1&keys=

Save Our Students, the student loan borrowers organization whose blog this is, strongly favors more and better forgiveness programs.  See our own plan and join us, free, at  http://lowerstudentloans.net