I agree with U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren!!

[Playinghardball]

Do you?

[Hoyt]

1. Don't disagree with that. But going from 5% to 0.75% won't help student who borrowed $100 K much

when they can't get a job and will likely never make what they were naive enough to believe they would.

[reformist2]

7. Exactly. We need to lower tuitions, or at least the cost to students.

[ConservativeDemocrat]

12. Not much?!?

A 30 year loan at 5% interest on a 100K loan means you have to repay $432,194. Or $332194 in interest.

The same loan at 0.75% interest over 30 years means you have to repay $125,127. Or $25,127 in interest.

That's a difference of $307,067.

Don't know about what that looks like in your parts, but where I live, I'd call that "much".

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[Hoyt]

16. They are broke, friend. Besides, who is going to give that rate to students. Tuition is too high,

jobs aren't there for students, and students aren't realistic in what they borrow. Those are pretty much true in all parts. If anybody is stupid enough to plan on repaying a student loan over 30 years, not much can be done to help them. They aren't going to make it on the grid.

[ConservativeDemocrat]

25. I think you missed the point...

Senator Warren's proposal is that the *government* give that rate to students. And yes, it could do so.

As far as why you repay over 30 years, it's because repaying it over 15 is a lot harder to do. The payments are higher.

For example, 100K at a 5% interest rate paid off over 30 years is $536 a month. Paid off over 15 years, it's $791.

Some people can afford $536 when they can't afford $791.

The same loan at a 0.75% interest rate would have a payment of $587 over 15 years.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[Hoyt]

28. Control tuition first, then a really low rate makes sense.

Need to help students make better choices if it's a federally backed loan. I think rates were 7% when I took out a student loan, but I didn't borrow more than I could pay in a few years. I knoe things are somewhat different nowdays.

[ConservativeDemocrat]

30. As I've mentioned below, community colleges are a real bargain. So are many State Universities.

However, you can't "control" the tuition of private universities. They're private. Furthermore, no one is forcing anyone to go to them. It's not like students don't have a choice.

There have been proposals like this before. One recently from Obama. But again, the GOP is deliberately obstructing, so this is what happens.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[freshwest]

32. The bankruptcy laws were gutted by the GOP. Then student loans were put in the category that must be

paid off - even if the person was disabled - they can garnish their freaking social security check! At least that was the latest outrage in place.

Warren is going at this the best she can, working on the for-profits that scammed a lot of students, training them for jobs that were not going to be there. Some universities did, too.

I had a bankuptcy many years ago from medical bills caused by an injury that was not my fault, before the GOP got into making sure their pals were paid - no matter how blood sucking the system got.

When I filed, I was humiliated, most people are. Despite having two forms of insurance, and still being able to work for less money, it was horrible and I had to file in federal court.

But my attorney handed me a lot of literature about how the bankruptcy courts were set up at or near the founding of the USA. To him, it was patriotic! Because it was America's answer to the British debtor's prison. A fresh start without shame.

The MSM and GOP political machine started smearing those who filed bankruptcy, just as they did those on public assistance. Most of it lies - the major cause for bankruptcy filings among individuals was for many years - and may still be - for medical bills.

A person should not be made to feel ashamed of an illness or an accident they had no control over, despite the image that media portrays, that many people have bought. We don't draw and quarter people, gouge out their eyes or cut their tongues out the way that old Europe did.

The Constitution forbids such cruel and unusual punishment, so why should we do it to those who get injured or ill, or student who find they were sold a bill of goods on what their career would be, to pay off student loan debt?

For that matter, why ruin the credit history and opportunity for employment and housing that comes from its loss for soldiers who got bonuses for enlisting, but were unable to finish their tour of duty and fulfill their contract, due to injury in war? And allow the creditors to hound them and their families, knowing they could not serve, could not work, making them homeless.



The GOP and their masters are CREATING poverty and cutting people down in their prime earning years to reduce those who have the best chance of making lives for themselves, to outliers and outcasts. Warren is doing what she can, Obama did get some Pell Grants for people, is continuing to fight for healthcare and education, but is anyone listening?

The MSM says nothing about these people. Let the students negotiate a deal, as businesses do when their company goes to pieces. Their creditors took a gamble on their ability to pay. The owners of the student loan debt, took a gamble too.

These loans should be written off for a tax break - it's what banks do all the time when their debtor can't pay such noncollateral loans like the student loans are. A loan that was secured with an asset is a different matter - these are not secured loans.

The bank or lender can get a tax break for the loss, and the debt is cleared off the debtor in a certain number of years. Or they negotiate a percentage to be paid, and I think it should be measured in the worth of what they got - a degree or certification for a career or job that doesn't exist in sufficient quantity for them to ever be able to pay it off.

Time to get back to reality again with a Demcratic House and Senate with the numbers to thumb their nose at the GOP. Until that is done, more youth will be disaffected and unable to make a difference in their lives except to be outliers - which is just what the Koch brothers, JBS and Libertarians wanted them to become!

[airplaneman]

34. I'm with you on this freshwest n/t.

[freshwest]

36. Thanks, airplaneman. n/t

[Pamela60]

52. To freshwest

Great post.

[erronis]

54. Lots of ++++

Like everything else, education is another way for the wealthy to rape to people.

[yeoman6987]

45. The question is why are students getting loans for 100K

That is ridiculous. They can go to Community College the first two years and take the same classes that they would at any other school and then transfer to the state college. At most they would spend 20 grand...ok maybe 25 thousand. It makes little sense to spend 100K on college especially if these adult graduates are not getting jobs. Even better would be after two years of Community College, stay at home and go to the local college...huge majority have colleges near their homes. That would lower the costs even more.

[Hoyt]

48. Exactly.

[daybranch]

64. In energy efficiency design there is integrative design

While much is made about how integrative design utilizes designers from many fields, it is the inclusion of many changes that permit a solution. It is obvious that interest rates are unnecessarily high since education is something the Government is trying to foster. It is also clear tuition is extremely high. Textbooks are extremely high. As for room and board I suspect it is too high but do not know if that is the case. The answer lies in understanding the total and addressing everything we can. Throwing out this piece and that piece must not be an excuse to avoid implementing obvious improvements. In fact it is implementation of obvious agreed to improvements that no one can say hurts the situation, that is usually the way forward in integrative design as proof of the approach and convinces skeptics to proceed with more and less obvious improvements. As the changes are made, further opportunities are possible and the success is assured. In stead of just saying what is also wrong, we should suggest improvement to that particular facet of this overall problem. I am sure you can suggest something to help those with huge amount of debt. What would it be? Maybe find a way to tax those who profited from this and using the funds to reduce the debt? What ideas, do you have?

[alittlelark]

2. Run Elizabeth Run !!!

So many would HEAR and understand the message!

[Scuba]

42. +1

[bvar22]

3. There was a time not so long ago when ANYONE...

...could attend the State University and graduate DEBT FREE
if he or she were willing to work Part Time.

We could have that again if we had more Democrats like Warren.

The 3rd Way is just the old Republican Way re-packaged in a different bag with a "DEMOCRAT" label
where Fundamental Human Rights are SOLD to Americans by For Profit Corporations at a nice profit for the Ownership Class.

[daleanime]

5. Amen....

[rhett o rick]

9. "The 3rd Way is just the old Republican Way re-packaged in a different bag with a "DEMOCRAT" label

where Fundamental Human Rights are SOLD to Americans by For Profit Corporations at a nice profit for the Ownership Class."

Thank you for saying that. We must kick the "Third Way" out of the Party. No conservatives in our party.

[ConservativeDemocrat]

22. Hoy boy! I can't wait to see how you intend to do that!

Seriously, I'm trying not to laugh, and not doing too well. Especially since self-described "Conservative" Democrats outnumber "Very Liberal" ones.


But let's stay on topic, shall we? The topic is education.

You don't need to go to some overpriced private school. Hell, you don't need to go to your full University all four years.

Community college is quite affordable. Let's not count my own home state because it's below average, but in California, for instance, that's $552 a semester. Stay at home, and you have your freshman and sophomore years done for about $2500. Then you can transfer to California's university system, which is about ten times that. Still, call it $15,000 per year for two years. Grand total $35K.

And that's before financial aid, which for middle class parents will pick up about half of the tuition you're paying (more if you're poorer). Call it about 17K for four years, or $4.5K per year, and that's easily within the scope of a part-time job.

Nobody is forcing anyone to go to some absurd overpriced private school where "Fundamental Human Rights are SOLD to Americans". Why people do this is beyond me. But if you are, for heaven sake, at least do something STEM related.

I'm all in favor of Senator Warren's proposal. But I'd also think college counseling needs to change. And more students steered into the trades, which quite frankly, many of them are more suited for anyway.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[rhett o rick]

31. Granted you have the major corporations on your side, like Goldman-Sachs and Exxon.

But conservatives belong in the Rethug Party. We are the party for the people and not corporations. Conservative/Corporatist need to be driven out of our party.

[ConservativeDemocrat]

37. Your delusions would be more amusing...

...if they weren't so sad. You sound like a Naderite trying to "purify" the party into irrelevance. (You would think that eight years of Bush would teach people. But it seems some are just too delusional to be taught.)

Fortunately there are people like me - and liberals too! - who know the power of working together on things we do agree on within the party. (Which is more than you might think.) We'll do the job you won't - keeping the country out of the hands of lunatics - by making a positive difference in campaigns.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

p.s. Your sparkling use of "Rethug" shows you have about the same maturity and persuasiveness as Tea Party loons who talk about "Demon-crats".

p.p.s. I'd ask for a citation that Goldman-Sachs and Exxon support Democrats, but it's abundantly clear you're just pulling crap out of your ass in a surfeit of "Truthiness". It's true that Obama did get significant Financial Industry support in 2008 because absolutely everyone was sick of the GOP at that point, but they turned right around and heavily supported the GOP since 2010. In fact, about the only Democrat getting any significant contributions from oil companies is Sen. Landrieu - which makes sense, since she represents Louisiana, and acts like it. (And even then - according to opensecrets, Exxon has given her only $3400, which is basically nothing.)

[rhett o rick]

59. Do you think I am delusional about the damage conservatives have done to this country?

Damage that continues with fracking, trade agreements that kill American jobs, construction of pipelines across our country, letting BP get away with destroying the Gulf, allowing our infrastructure to crumble yet continuing the extremely high defense budget.

Conservatives are happy as pigs in shit that the corporations are having the highest profits ever, while almost 25% of American children live in poverty. Conservatives dont give a crap about anything but wealth for the wealthy.

We are in a class war and the conservatives are on the side of the 1%.

and Really? " it's abundantly clear you're just pulling crap out of your ass" You cant have a decent discussion?

[fascisthunter]

61. They just Don't Care

they are selfish, and see the end game as being personally beneficial. The damage that has been done is seen as collateral, and because they personally don't sacrifice a damn thing(except in truth they destroy their own country), then they just see it as a gain. They can't understand others pain... I am beginning to think many conservatives are just straight up sociopaths, and most others have adopted a sociopath's way of seeing the world, until they are the victim of their very own economic ideology.

[rhett o rick]

62. I agree. I think conservative and Democratic are mutually exclusive. nm

[jeff47]

58. Yes, let's go ahead and use CA as an example.

Now, how much did it cost for 4 years at a UC before Prop 13?

About $200/year. Tuition was $0 for in-state students. Students had to pay for books and fees. That $200 took about 67 hours of a minimum-wage job. Per year. So work in the summer, and you could very easily afford to go to a UC.

Yes, it's really about the unrealistic expectations of these kids today. Has nothing to do with the changes conservatives foisted upon the California, and the rest of the country.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

63. Is it to simple to say that we need to return to that formula?

Or admit that a degree isn't worth that much pain and hardship at the start of a persons career.

[jeff47]

65. It's definitely worth $0.

It's worth the low-tens-of-thousands most state schools charge.

It's not worth 100k+ unless you are going to a school where the alumni network can make you a lot of money (Stanford, Harvard, Yale, etc).

In some cases, it's to receive the necessary training to start one's career.

In other cases, it's just to receive the piece of paper, because employers require that despite a degree not really conferring any useful skills.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

66. I realize that after working 18 years for the Univ. of CA

Many shouldn't have even been there.

[jeff47]

67. Not for the training. But when businesses have lots of applications for secretary jobs

tossing out the ones without college degrees is a quick way to shorten the pile of resumes.

[Enthusiast]

39. +1 a whole bunch!

[Sarah Ibarruri]

17. Here's the problem. She's doing that pretty much on her own steam, without any help from us...

In that regard, she's pretty remarkable. Most people aren't like that.

[Enthusiast]

40. A huge plus one! nt

[Seeking Serenity]

4. Maybe she could also start leaning

on higher ed, like her former employer, to stop charging so damn much, excuse my language.

If colleges and universities didn't charge so bloody much, kids wouldn't need to borrow so much.

[MannyGoldstein]

15. Actually, Harvard's cheap.

They cap tuition at 10% of the parents yearly income, they can do that in part because their endowment is still quite large even after Larry Summers did his job on it when he was their president. We're praying that Thor gets into Harvard in a few years, in part because of the tuition ( there are a few other good reasons, I hear...)

[Sobriquet]

23. Especially when they charge so bloody much for frivolous courses that have nothing to do with jobs.

The liberal arts are best learned from a public library. I say this as someone who never had much in terms of maths skills to begin with and ended up going to college to study crap because I was told that I'd never get any job if I didn't have a college degree. Now I wish I'd gone to a voc-tech for high school, then straight to a career program at community college and maybe a bachelor's later on, but not until I'd been working for some time and could afford it. Even though I transferred from a CC to my current program (BA history/anthropology), and won't have any debt, I'm not going to earn much, if anything, over my lifetime, and will more likely than not end up flipping burgers anyway because I have zero real-world skills and have stopped caring about Ancient Egypt and any number of political-philosophical "-isms" (not that I ever really did).

I have the utmost sympathy for people who go on disability even though technically they aren't "disabled" in the medical sense. They're disabled in the occupational sense. It's like we have a whole nation of telegraph operators and the only jobs available are at Verizon. University needs an upgrade, big time, and I'm not talking about updating the computer labs to Windows 7. I'm talking about the fact that the liberal-arts system remains stuck in the monastic era and is disgustingly outdated to meet the needs of the 21st century job market. I'm not saying don't read Shakespeare if that's what you're interested in. I'm saying that allowing -- no, enticing -- kids, who most often have no idea what they want to do or how they want to go about it, to spend 4 years reading Hamlet and charging them five and six figures for what they can otherwise get for free, is highway robbery. Not to mention outright lying to them and saying "oh, employers will always want this particular skill set, it's always in demand, you have just as much of a chance getting a great job as someone with a finance or STEM degree" -- WRONG. I don't see too many CompSci grads handing out smiley faces at Wal-Mart. A BA in liberal arts is like a HS diploma printed from MS Paint.

What colleges and student-loan sharks are guilty of doing is tantamount to what the predatory mortgage lenders did, selling the American Dream to desperate people and then literally ripping the rug right out from under them. Universities are culpable too in this mess, and I'm tired of seeing people defend them like they're the hallowed halls of Shangri-La and the tweed-jacket crowd are demigods. I'm almost at the point of becoming suicidal because I dread the inevitable job search next fall, having nothing in my hand but a piece of toilet paper with "Liberal Arts" written on it in "#2" ink. Maybe if the students' jobs were given higher priority instead of these tenured professors with irrelevant "skill sets," who haven't been job searching since 'Nam, who don't know/care about the realities of what we're going through today, and whose vast amounts of trivial knowledge could be put to better use editing Wikipedia or writing a blog, we wouldn't be in this mess. Instead, we're training a bunch of navel-gazing BuzzFeeders, whose sole hope of a livable income involves winning on Jeopardy!. As for me, I really don't care about Plato or musical theater when all I want to do is get out of here and get a good-paying job at a bank or a doctor's office. I'd be more than willing to let my mind go hungry if my stomach could be full.

[freebrew]

47. One can learn ANYTHING in a public library...

it doesn't mean that learning can be used to get employment.

In this country, right or wrong, getting hired as an engineer means that you need a degree. Most engineers don't need a degree to do the job. I did it for 20 years. Unfortunately, my pay didn't reflect the quality of work, but my lack of degree.

There are many, many idiots graduating college and pushing smart qualified folks under the bus because they don't have access to higher education. It's really no wonder that this nation is on the brink of disaster. Important positions are not held by those qualified, but by those with $$ and connections.

Do you really think that Romney and his buddies would have even qualified to get into Harvard were it not for his father and his father's connections? Mitt was only one of the stupidest group of presidential contenders we've seen in a long time. Since 2000 election, the republicans have sported some of the most grossly incompetent contenders the nation has ever seen.

Would Herman Cain be given the time of day by the M$M if he wasn't rich? Face it. He would be a laughing stock 20 years ago.

Higher ed is but one of the problems here.

[passiveporcupine]

6. And so can poor people who need loans to repair their homes

Or need help paying off medical bills. Or even being saved from foreclosure!

[theHandpuppet]

8. +1000

[passiveporcupine]

10. Let me clarify

I am not poverty level, but below 400% of poverty level. I am a disable homeowner. I live alone. I just found out my domestic water supply (a natural spring) is really giving up the ghost. It's been drying up a little more every year since I bought my place 17 years ago. This winter it dried up completely and I went three months without running water, until the rains finally started again. Oregon was experiencing serious drought conditions. And now I know my spring will most likely dry up completely this summer. I need a well, and the cost of that here is about 10K, so how do I do that? I can't afford a loan. This is the kind of thing a rural economic development loan might help (a 1% loan), but I can't get one. They say I don't make enough on disability. So what do I do? I will probably live without water, on and off from now on. I'm 64 and disabled, so this won't be easy. I've been here 17 years and did not buy this place expecting this to happen. I also did not expect to be disabled when I bought this place. Things happen, and we need a country that can help people in need.

These are the kinds of things that wipe people out, no matter how hard they worked in their lifetime.

[bvar22]

57. I wish I could help.

Many forecasters are saying that El Nino will return this year
bringing rain relief to California. I don't know if that will help you in Oregon,
but is supposed to help us here in Arkansas by increasing rainfall and raising our water table.

We also have a spring.
Our life here in the rural Ouachita Mountains depends on that spring.
We have a Plan B in case something happens to it,
but Plan B (hauling water) is not really realistic.

You might check with your County Extension, and the people who dig water wells to see if some kind of state or local assistance is available to you.

Good Luck.

I am also 64.
My wife & I moved to The Woods in 2006.
A good on property spring was at the top of our Must Have list when we were shopping for our place.

[Hoyt]

18. +1.

[RB TexLa]

11. If they are going to use those terms and pay the money back the next day, I don't think

anyone would have a problem with giving students overnight loans for .75%

[MannyGoldstein]

13. Sorry, I don't

College students are more useful to society than Wall Street is, students should pay less.

Also... Could you cross-post to the Elizabeth Warren group so when folks visit they see all of her greatness? Thanks in advance!

[wildbilln864]

14. k & r! n/t

[treestar]

19. Who doesn't?

But how is this to become law?

[ReRe]

20. K&R

[Bigmack]

21. Cheaper to have free tuition ....

... rather than the patchwork of grants and aid that the US gives to college students.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/01/heres-exactly-how-much-the-government-would-have-to-spend-to-make-public-college-tuition-free/282803/

[mountain grammy]

24. State universities and colleges should be tuition free for state students..

Remember California was? Then Governor Ronald Reagan. No more free rides, kids.

[MindMover]

26. tick,tick,tick,tick,tick ...

[tea and oranges]

27. It's a Slow Painful Way for a Nation to Kill Itself

This is what it looks like when your government abrogates its duties & responsibilities to the people it has sworn to serve. No other industrialized nation cripples their young, their futures the way we do.

Greed + Long Term Thinking are incompatible.

[spin]

29. I totally agree. (n/t)

[airplaneman]

33. All of Australia agrees with Elizabeth Warren

We need to copy them.
0.0% interest on government student loans.
$15.00 an hour minimum wage.
-Airplane

[GReedDiamond]

35. KnR...it's plain common sense!...nt

[Enthusiast]

38. Kicked and recommended a whole bunch.....nt

[Warren DeMontague]

41. She's got a point.

[grahamhgreen]

43. So should home owners....!

[toby jo]

44. She nailed that one.

'treating students as profit centers'. Exactly what they do. Hope we hear about this on the election circuit. All with details and numbers.

[Paper Roses]

46. Love this woman. Wish we had more like her! n/t

[Jakes Progress]

49. Let's count the Democrats in congress. One . . .

Uh. A couple of others, but they need to study Elizabeth to see how to perfect their party affiliation.

[polichick]

50. That idea would help get millennials to the polls...

to vote for a Sanders-Warren ticket. Not sure they'll vote the midterms though.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

51. Free is better.

[Zorra]

53. Heck, even Venezuela sends their kids to college for free.

Why can't we?

[Laelth]

55. k&r for Elizabeth Warren. n/t

-Laelth

[gussmith]

56. I Agree to Fairness Principles

What I have trouble with is any politican supporting a tax scheme aimed at a particular group - hear me out.

Warren, and De Blasio too, want to "tax the rich" to afford certain programs. Fine, if that is supported by a tax workable structure applied across the board. Let's get those percentages worked out, eliminate the subsidies and the write-off. Then establish tax rates that meet across the board fairness. As a progressive, I cringe when it is proposed to use the tax code to 'get' certain people. Just get it right.

[Mass]

60. Lower college tuition so that people do not need to be indebted for their whole life.

Sure, I do not disagree with this, but this is far from enough to be useful.