Just a few weeks ago I wrote over at Central Sanity about how student loans were sucking young adults dry, and strangely enough this problem began when Sallie Mae started to privatize.
Fast forward to today. The House of Representatives has just passed the College Cost Reduction Act of 2007 (emphasis mine):
The bill will provide the single largest increase in college aid since the GI bill in 1944. The legislation invests about $18 billion dollars over the next five years in reducing college costs, helping millions of students and families. It comes at no new cost to taxpayers, and is funded by cutting excess subsidies paid by the federal government to lenders in the student loan industry.
Yes, the plan is to cut the government handout to a few profitable student loan companies that are raking in the dough while mortgaging an entire generation, and instead give the handout to thousands of young adults who will in a few short years more than pay it back in the form of taxes on higher earnings. Contrast that, if you will, with the fact that some student loan interest is tax deductible and therefore reduces taxes paid. At no additional cost to the government, the maximum Pell Grant will rise over $1000 per eligible student by 2012. I really like that “no additional cost” part. And there’s more — the loan rate on government backed student loans will drop too, both solving a real problem and giving a nod to personal responsibility for things like college.
Oh, but please don’t skip the beautiful rant by Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller, lashing out against Republicans who were trying to add poison-pill amendments:
You don’t like the fact that were going to take 5 million middle class kids and extend to them a loan thats interest rate is cut in half? While their families are struggling to get them through college? They’re making sacrifices every year? You’re going to do this? You’re going to kill this bill? Are you proud? Are you proud of this amendment, that you are going to try to kill this bill? Say it louder.
There’s more, and video goodness, so check it out. But please remember, it still has to get through the Senate and probably a conference committee before it even arrives on the President’s desk. And the President has a lot of things on his mind these days.
(via mcjoan at Kos)
In closing: idle hands are the Devil’s workshop, and 60-70% of Iraqis have no job; a man, his lawn chair, and 105 balloons; CNN lets us know that “Billions in subprime ARMs will be subject to higher payments”; oh my, the FBI can prove Gonzales lied to Congress (remember, that is impeachable all by itself); and finally, Mari goes to the White House and gives the President a handwritten piece of her mind. Her mother, who failed to give LBJ a piece of her mind decades ago, is very proud.
This is a big area of interest, but I still have no faith. The senates version doesn’t do anything for student loans, but increases Pell Grants. With college getting more and more expensive, the poor and middle class are being squeezed out. Students who were already using loans were pretty much fricked when the republican congress played their game and increased the interest on them. I am furious at the Democrats in the senate for ignoring the promises they made regarding student loans.
I fundamentally agree, which is why I cautioned that just because the House was trying to do something that looks like “the right thing to do” doesn’t mean that it will become law. Considering the rise in college prices, raising the Pell Grant max is long, long overdue. I consider this a factor (albeit minor) in the current “student loan crisis”. Somehow I was able to survive college on a combination of grants, scholarships, a part-time job, and only a couple thousand dollars of debt; I’m not sure that’s possible anymore, and our whole society is the poorer for it.
It is also important to remember that the Republicans have been trying to chop the feet off student loan programs in general since the Original Bush Administration (you remember, the one who was actually elected?); they started by limiting and reclassifying the sorts of things that would earn a deferment. For example, medical internships suddenly became a “job” for purposes of loans issued after that point, despite the fact that interns work long hours (which means no second job) for low pay and don’t yet actually qualify for a license to practice medicine. When you consider that the average medical school debt is well into 6 figures and rising, you see that the “student loan crisis” actually has something to do with the “health care crisis”. I have no doubt that if I took the time I cold also connect the dots to several other “crises.”
It’s enough to make one wonder if the object wasn’t to deliberately push un-moneyed “riff-raff” out of higher education, particularly fields with no clear monetary payoff like the arts.