“...especially if, like him, you dealt with a particularly problematic servicer called ACS several years ago.”
What do you mean by this? I am a nurse practitioner who since 2007 has been diligently paying off my loans every month through ACS. Now I’m worried.
8
Isn’t it weird how, whenever a bank makes an error or sends borrowers incorrect information, it always seems to turn out in the bank’s favor? If banks hadn’t repeatedly proved themselves to be so trustworthy, I’d think it was on purpose.
6
The call to serve as a public school teacher should not be continually punished with such stringent and complicated loan repayment tortures. It is hard enough to carry a community's expectations for its children on one's shoulders every day.
9
It is infuriating if not surprising that government reinforces government against the private sector by forgiving student loans for workers of any government, federal, state, local or tribal or worker of non profits. This presupposes that somehow government workers are more worthy than those working in the private sector. Are nurses at a private hospital less worthy than clerk at the motor vehicle department? Are steel workers less worthy than tax collectors? What business is it for the government to promote government work over the private sector and call winners and losers? None.
9
I have been paying on my loans for 10 years and work as a social worker for the state if delaware they told me when I contacted them recently that I had to start over because the loans weren't consolidated, I was told initially that all I had to so was pay 10 years and work in public service which I did, what can I do now??? Can someone help me????
3
Lieber's prior article says Jed paid 70K over 10 years. A quick check of ASU tuition calculator would put tuition at 60K for BOTH a Bachelors and Masters degree.
That's before factoring in the litany of scholarships/grants ASU's teachers college offers; between 2K-4K a year in grants plus another 2K-4K a year in state/federal awards. University merit scholarships start at ACT score > 22 would provide more support. So a decent student could have a Masters level education for, at minimum, for 24K.
How has he paid 70K yet still has an outstanding balance? Am I missing something? The article, conspicuously, doesn't mention where he went to college. Which probably means a private institution.
Average teacher salary in AZ is 46K before performance awards for 182/day contract. 10% of pay funds all insurance and pension. It's in the 50's for secondary Ed and/or with M.ED.
It's not Goldman Sachs money but, with some planning, you can make decent money with good benefits and graduate with manageable debt.
It be interesting to see the average debt of private teaching degrees vs public.
3
While I am glad to learn that promises are now being kept, I must say that former students working in the public sector should be grateful. They have good paying jobs with pensions. Those with the most heart wrenching realities are the students who took out loans but never graduated. (I wonder if there is a statistic on the percentage who are minorities or who come from low-income families.) I am sure they were lured by slick marketing that only quietly mentioned a 60% or 70% graduation rate.
It makes me wonder if there should be a promise of cost-free graduation (no matter the time length) after 5 years of full tuition has been paid.
1
Our system of financing higher education is so broken. We let schools charge as much as they want. Then they give "scholarships" which reduce to price to what is real. There are many forms of public service jobs. Not all benefit society in the same way. Yet, all are treated the same for loan forgiveness. If we pick up the costs (us taxpayers), there should be some determination how is should be fairly administered. Public service should not substidize past education. It should stand on its own merits.
2
I am old, but if I remember, I paid a portion of my student loan off through service. It was a program that targeted teachers. I shan't shock you with the paltry amounts it took to cover some expenses my scholarships didn't cover, but ....after graduation, if I taught in a public school, I received a 10% deduction on said loan for each year I taught...up to five. So...no interest for five years, no payments, and in five years the amount owed was reduced 50%.
There was some responsibility on the borrower, but it was minimized. If one did not teach for the full five years, credit was given for years taught. Again....old person here....I think service in Title I schools received a 10% discount. Erasing the debt after five years of work in a targeted low income school. The plan disallowed non teachers from using it to pay for their education. Not a bad model.
4
My current payments in a "level" "standard" repayment plan are $333/month. It says I make those payments over 10 years, but my last payment isn't until 2038? Yeah that's clear. Right now, I've been making payments like clockwork for 9 years and my balance hasn't budged.
The bright side has been that I work for the federal government and expect to have my loans forgiven in just another year or two. But now I find out my standard level payments of $333 may not count, because I needed to be making income-based payments of $307? Guess I have some researching and calling and possible appealing to do.
7
I, like the person in the article, have been working in public service--for 19 years and am "in line" for this federal rebate. The lack of information, organization, and clarify through this entire "benefit" is yet another example of how poorly our work is valued in this society. It really shouldn't be this hard, bureaucratic and stressful to be "forgiven."
11
I read this article back in October. I had a lot of empathy for this teacher. I and the majority of my peers are dealing with student debt. I am glad to see inspite of this administration; people are getting the help the need. Finally, GOOD NEWS!
1
I have been working for the US Forest Service as a permanent employee for 9 years now, and thought I was close to qualifying for Public Service loan forgiveness. Now I read that I need to be in an "income-based" repayment? I have always been in "Standard Repayment" because I figured that would be the norm that things were built around. To top it off, my loan description says "You make the same monthly payment amount each month for 10 years." I have been making payments for nine years and my balance is about the same as when I started. Would be nice if all of this was easier to follow.
7
I am finishing my first year and 3 months on PSLF. My annual statement from 2017 said that I have paid about $5000 in interest and $87 on principal. It's the worst legal extortion racket I can imagine, next to to Payday loans. I don't mind paying interest, but these rates are criminal.
19
If you’re working towards PSLF, why do you care what the interest rate is? It’s irrelevant in determining your payment under an income-based plan.
4
Good teachers have the power to shape many lives. I am the product of The Detroit Public School System Pre -1970. I graduated in 1967 from Mumford High School, one of the highest rated schools in Michigan and the country producing 100's of doctors, dentists, attorneys, musicians, writers, politicians. After the riots the good teachers left and the current system is in shambles.
Helping educators and students needs to be examined for forgiveness to those with higher education willing to share the gift of knowledge. As students we spent most of our days and lives with teachers, some struggling to pay bills relating to school loans.
When we have some segments of our country earning millions without giving back it is time to enact programs to fortify our once great schools to the level we once had.
15
Heart breaking that education has joined healthcare as a source of revenue.
44
In my utopia, teachers going through a teacher's college should be forgiven from any loans the second they graduate.
I teach now and my goodness I don't see how young teachers survive on the measly paychecks we receive. For those who have a permanent bill every month (student loans) I can't see how you do it. Lawmakers need to take note.
Teachers should have a tax-free salary, especially here in Arizona, where they are now allowing students STILL in college to be in a classroom. The shortage is incredible.
33
It's not enough that teachers get salaries, health insurance, and pensions funded by taxpayers -- they should be exempt from income taxes too? Too many "public servants" think they are entitled.
15
If it's such a great deal, why do we struggle so with teacher shortages? Most of our teachers could be earning more with their college degrees in other professions. They are doing a job that most don't want, and there are few professions as important to the health of our society. They deserve all the support we can offer them.
4
My school district takes more than $5,000 a year from my pay for my pension. I pay several thousand a year for medical premiums. I'm typing this at my part-time weekend job.
3
Who in their right mind thinks that deVos either understands, cares, or will solve this problem. She cares nothing about anything but privatizing education using OUR tax dollars to pay for religious schools. Notice: it’s mostly Democratic senators/representatives trying to help individuals in these dilemmas. That’s so sad - a party with NO power is trying to put their fingers in every dike out there to avert personal and national disasters every day.
17
Odd that his article is under the heading "Your Money". My money paid for my student loans but now we want my money to pay for someone else's. I mean, what is wrong with using my money because others were kind of stupid? Nothing I guess.
11
A great follow-up story on Mr. Shafer. One small step for Mr. Shafer. One giant leap for students in debt. PSLF is a good gov't program if it wasn't too complex to comprehend. I hope this is a start of a new beginning for us students in repayment.
3
Of course as more and more and even more tax payer dollars go towards "fixes" and "forgiveness" this continues to prop up the utterly ridiculous increases in tuition, in this case favoring those who go work for the govt. Why on earth would schools lower their prices when the govt just keeps shoveling more money in their direction?
14
A big thank to The Times and Ron Lieber is certainly warranted and certainly those that will directly benefit will echo that sentiment.
5
Calling the USDE shoots up one's blood pressure. I have never seen a more dysfunctional, clear-as-mud bureaucracy than the USDE. Something has to be done about this situation, and soon. I can't even imagine poor Mr. Shafer's angst and frustration with this system and the uncertainty of his financial future, especially for someone who has been trying to do the right thing and is in a profession of serving the public as a teacher.
26
The woman who made $400,000+ in a little more than a year as a "Professor" at Harvard is now trying to get the government to pay the debt for the people that were sold on the idea of being educated by Warren and her friends, am I the only one seeing the irony in this? The cost of college and health care are out of control, it all got that way because the government got it's dirty hands in it.
10
Wrong. It is lack of government regulation that got us that way. Consider Germany. They have a plan that many would call socialistic. Yet, everyone who chooses higher education has it essentially paid for. They have a well educated populace that serves the country. Yet, their student do not graduate with a lick of debt. Things are the way they are not because of gov. involvement. They are the way precisely because those in power want it that way because they benefit from it. The rest of us are pawns.
17
Alan, many European nations have great plans for higher education. However, US students who want to spend five or six years getting a four year degree or students who choose to spend obscene amounts of money on a poorly paying field would find themselves completely left behind. I can hear all the complaining now about how things are too hard or not sensitive to ones needs. The European method is not just another plan to toss money around, it demands something from those who benefit from it. Something not so common here in our society.
2
Have you ever read anything more overly complicated? Other than perhaps the IRS code, with its "deduct Line 20 from the difference between Lines 41 and 12, less the sum of Lines 7 - 10, unless the sum is less than the squad root of pi plus your age", no. This is a classic example of government and and the bureaucracy at their operational best...worst.
5
The IRS code is set in motion by Congress. Agency employees do their best to translate the provisions of wacky tax laws into guided calculations that anyone with the intelligence it takes to follow simple directions can get right.
1
I would rather deal with the IRS than The US Dept of Educ or any sudent loan servicer. I had to deal with PHEAA & AES. - together they're AKA "Fed Loan Servicing." I've audited by the IRS. The IRS was less stressful. Although AES & PHEAA have ".org" websites, each appears in business to make money, not to facilitate loan repayment. Misinformation from AES put many people into the same horrendus situation as Mr Shafer. Caution for Mr Shafer, he isn't out of the quagmire until he receives a written statement that every penny of his student loan (s) is forgiven. I remain in PSLF but resigned myself to never getting the 10 years of credit. An IRS audit would easily demonstrate that I've been in full-time public service, for qualifying 501C3 non profits, since the the start of PSLF and for 11 years prior to to PSLF. Making equal to or less than any public school teacher or 501C3 private school teacher.
Some people are always saying, “the Republicans are terrible but who knows what the Democrats stand for”. It was always obvious to me and this article illustrates it. The Democrats are for decency, for fair policy and fixing what they can where they can. They are not in a position of power but they are using what they have to make this egregious, self dealing, and corrupt administration a little less dangerous every day
Vote in every election - there really is a difference
57
Wonderful, public service journalism.
14
Kafka couldn't have invented a trickier world of rules and regs. Good news for Jed Shafer - and the many who study hard and give back to our communities.
25
Fantastic news for this teacher! And journalists of the NYT!
Now, if USDOE and State DOEs could just communicate this loan forgiveness reality clearly and consistently to University financial aid officers, faculty leaders of schools of education, and parents/students of graduating high school students snd their parents, we might have a reasonable tool for decreasing the shortage of professional teachers. (State compensation and school management will need to be fixed, too.)
And then let’s end the US love-affair with “privatizing profits” of endeavors best kept non-profit (eg. homeschool industry practices; for-profit high schools; and for-profit universities which soak up federal aid with shameful completion rates).
Take back education ya’ll — and agree to pay your share, governments!
Oh, maybe that will help reduce teacher strikes. Governments nationwide should be ashamed how you sit by while our social fabric frays and basic literacies become a luxury, not an American right.
Public education was one of our national points of pride. That isn’t nostalgia—it’s hope and purpose for change until we can carry our social gains forward into a new, New American Century. Aim for high success rates in completion like the past. Then carry it forward with new virtues this generation can bring to add to our shared civic life.
Kids only get one childhood in which to learn to read, write, and think—and to take up their full, inalienable rights and liberties as humans.
5
How can this nation destroy it's future by eliminating public education and running the worst high eduction loan program ever conceived? Please wake up! Unlike the opinion of conservative Republicans, a college educated America and a union supported living wage is the only wake to keep America great.
35
" .. a union supported living wage .."
Teacher unions constantly threaten to strike and think they cannot be replaced.
Wrong. Everyone can be replaced, no one is irreplaceable. To think otherwise is to be delusional, in a fantasy world, IMHO.
You know, it’s possible to go to affordable state universities.
1
Yes I attended nothing but state universities and still walked away with 50K in debt 13 years ago. To finish my bachelor's and become a teacher with 2 certificates. I still can't afford to buy a house in my home state. State school are now, on average 5-10K a year. 4 years makes 20 to 40K in the hole. That's not including any advanced degrees or certifications.
Folks do not want to accept there is no such thing as affordable higher education. The costs have skyrocketed over the last 20 years. You can't go to school unless you have 20K or more socked away. Which most of us don't. Even with work study, grants, GI bill there is still plenty left over that needs to be paid. You invest in your future by getting an education but this investment is a ponzi scheme that we're all drowning in.
Teachers union are threatening to strike now, only because we've been trying to work with districts for years, to no avail. You get to the point where you see they won't listen unless you put their feet to the fire. I do not apologize for any of my colleagues who strike. No one wants to do it but none of us are martyrs. The days of having a young women making pennies as a teacher before she married are long long gone. We're vital to American society but America seems to think we don't need to eat.
3
It is a ridiculous idea that people who work for the government are "public servants" deserving of special treatment compared to people who serve the public through private sector jobs. The loan forgiveness program should be terminated.
10
Earned! Yes, earned. Earned. By law. Earned.
1
Hooray for authentic public servants like Jed Shafer not getting ripped off by the student loan collection maze!
Investing in our society-building professionals should never be another form of usury to begin with, after all.
9
I am enrolled in the PSLF program. My employer, a 501c3, recently switched to using a PEO (professional employer organization, a for-profit LLC) to administer payroll and health benefits to its employees so our W2s have the PEOs FEIN number on it rather than that of the non-profit we work for. I have tried to find information online about whether this is going to cause problems or somehow disqualify me from the PSFL program. I am afraid to ask the FedLoan people because I don't want to draw attention to it. I can still have my employer (the non-profit) certify my employment, but am concerned about the annual required, income re-certification that uses tax returns. Can the NYTimes please try to find out more about this? -- There must be many people in this same situation.
14
The use of your tax returns is simply to verify your income to calculate your monthly payments under an income-based repayment plan. That is unrelated to whether you work for a qualifying organization to determine whether your payments will count towards PSLF. Fedloan Servicing does not review your W-2 when obtaining income information. They only look at the adjusted gross income listed on your return.
1
I’ve been teaching Cienfuegos since 1998, mostly in low income schools. None of my loans are eligible. My big loan is FFEL. Such a bummer. But I only have 5 more years left. It’s a shame more teachers can’t qualify for this.
3
One look at the details and you can tell that, like Obama's HAMP, this program is designed to fail.
3
Thank you, nytimes. This is scary—stay on this, please.
9
My relative works as a guard in a PA prison privately administered for PA by a FL-based company. Since he is paid by the contractor, he is being told he does not qualify for federal loan forgiveness. He has a BS in Criminal Justice from a PA state university and is guarding felons convicted by PA in a prison owned by PA. He also has $40,000 in student debt from studentloan.gov. He is on the "income-based payment schedule" for his guard's salary (lower than at the state-run prisons). He is thus paying less than the monthly interest and has accrued an additional $2,000 in interest debt since he started work two years ago, with no reduction in principal. If he were qualified, each year of service would reduce his principal by $4,000. He is paid less by the contractor AND gets no loan-forgiveness benefit.
If he worked in almost any other prison in PA, he would qualify under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program. If he worked for the state or for a non-profit he would qualify as:
"- Public safety
- Law enforcement: crime prevention, control or reduction of crime, or the enforcement of criminal law" studentaid.ed.gov
The exclusion of employees who are paid using tax dollars through contractors for otherwise-qualifying public service work is absurd, and a false savings. The loan forgiveness that applies to those paid by government or by non-profits should likewise apply to those who are paid through a contracting agency for equivalent jobs.
17
My husband made 120 payments while working in public service, but when he applied for forgiveness he was denied because he was on the wrong payment plan. (He was on graduated, not income-based) which I understand is his fault, but devastating nonetheless. But I am sure he was paying much more on the graduated plan than he would have on an income-based one, so this article gives us new hope.
22
I can’t wait until 2037 when I make my final $500 payment. It will be after 23 years of teaching. Even working full time through college and making cash tuition payments every semester. My original $41,000 loan equals $89,000 after interest. That is 89 grand that my local businesses didn’t get to see. If the government really cared about the middle class and small businesses they would do something about the cost of college.
71
When I paid off my student loans, I put the equivalent of the loan payment in my retirement fund every month. It didn't do much for the local economy, or for mine either in the short term, but at least I have a little nest egg now (and 30 more years to add to it).
3
The need for qualified teachers is so dire that they should receive a fully funded education similar to that provided by the military under their ROTC program. We thank our military for their service, provide them with a free college education and health benefits for life.
Teachers provide a valued service to society for very little pay, compared to what they could earn as professionals with advanced degrees.
By funding an ROTC program for teachers willing to serve in regions of the country where the need is greatest, we could solve several social and economic issues simultaneously.
64
When a loan is forgiven, doesn't the borrower owe income taxes on the amount forgiven?
If so, this must be remedied. Who can pay taxes on e.g. $50,000?
Not when the student loan is forgiven due to public service. There’s a section in the Internal Revenue Code that specifically addresses this.
4
It is always great to see a bright light at the end of a dark and forgotten tunnel. This is a great first step and the coverage of the problem a needed crutch. But, as Ms. Warren points out, there is more to do. Bailing out the lower blighted middle class may be politically expedient but there are people working hard in the lower trenches without an economic ladder to get close enough to this lower middle class to even be noticed. We have over three million teachers in this country and fifty grand for seven thousand is peanuts.
Teachers trapped in Associate Faculty jobs with their hours cut just below full-time for years have been juggling staying alive with multiple jobs without adequate compensation or benefits. Single parents with one income have worked for years making payments, defaulting, recovering with usury charges from fly-by-night collectors added, making payments, then defaulting again when teachers were laid off. They never qualify for help.
The spark in the night is great but don't forget the rest of us at the back of the tunnel--we are aging and our student loans are our mortgage in an economy that hasn't paid a lot of public and nonpublic people a living wage nor created full-time positions consistently.
20
The situation regarding student loan forgiveness is an outrage and a national disgrace. "The Economist reported in June 2014 that ... there was approximately $1.3 trillion of outstanding student loan debt in the U.S. that affected 44 million borrowers [with "over 7 million debtors in default"] who had an average outstanding loan balance of $37,172." At a time when public schools desperately need more, and better qualified, teachers the immense and expensive bureaucratic red-tape is unacceptable. Moreover, the situation at the VA is very similar with a major shortage of physicians causing the backlogs that have led to a push for privatization. Instead, with medical school graduates now carrying an average of $190,000 in debt, a loan forgiveness program would solve the staffing shortage at the VA at a much lower cost than privatization which involves profits, higher physician salaries (twice those of the VA), and expensive medical tests often to protect against malpractice which is barred from services provided directly by the VA.
6
I have been working in public service jobs my whole career and immediately signed up for the loan forgiveness program in 2007. The goal posts kept shifting the entire time I attempted to accumulate qualifying payments. At first, every two payments I made qualified because they had to be equivalent to payments made under a 10 year plan (which didn't make much sense since you would never reach the 120 payments or you would be paid in full by the time you did...) Then a program change occurred and my qualifying payments were wiped and I had none. A few calls with the program office revealed I was in the wrong payment plan and would essentially never qualify. I gave up. The program is only for who can dedicate a fair number of hours of their lives to attempting to qualify. Glad that at least a few people are reaching loan forgiveness.
19
The author doesn’t describe why the teacher here had issues with the DOE’s previous determination regarding his payments. I completed grad school in 2009. Later that year, I consolidated all of my loans with the DOE into its Direct Loan Program, which was one of the requirements for anyone who had non-Direct Loans. All of the details of the PSLF program were clearly stated on the DOE’s website back then and they haven’t changed, so I don’t understand why this teacher and others are not figuring this out until years after they began making payments.
2
My student loans would have been paid off by now except I am stuck with a student loan at 8% and that is after refinancing back 2005 when it was 10%. The saving grace has been the income driven loan. I have little income now. I will not live long enough to see them gone.
7
The student loan nightmare will only end when America decides that affordable college education or vocational training for people (not necessarily free, as it is in more evolved countries) is what is actually needed for a society to have a stable work force and people to have a strong work ethic. It is a huge, cruel irony that many students graduate with unfathomable student loan debt, then earn an income that may not match what is needed to pay back the loans, with their astronomical interest rates, and they are also being taxed to finance many government social services they do not qualify for (such as services that subsidize generations of people who are capable of working, but opt to live on the dole). Only in America.
1
I teach for a large public bureaucratic urban school system where stories such as these are daily fare. They make getting old and dying not seem so bad. A welcome relief actually. My heart goes out to all those whose cases transpire without a mention and completely at the whim of some totally confused downtown bureaucrat who’s had a bad day themselves. It’s what we’ve made for ourselves, unfortunately, so now we’re stuck with it.
18
This is great news. I remember reading the original article and becoming infuriated but this, by this process, and by the response. The services should be here to help, not hinder, and the fact that the DOE didn’t really care was more frustrating.
It’s great to see that this was taken seriously in Washington and that at least a stop-gap put in place while the whole program is examined.
If current leadership wants to cancel the program for new borrowers, that’s up to them, but it has to let existing entrants finish the program, and assist them in doing so.
3
Americans wonder why teachers are striking in state after state. 11 years of teaching high risk kids, I too didn't qualify. It was distressing & maddening.
The gov't needs to honor this program; teachers are financially suffering nationwide.
When I 1st. became a teacher the social contract was simple; I had to be highly qualified, train every year to keep that status by taking classes, but accept a salary way below the market value of my education & expertise. In return for not being paid over the summer or for all those hours (after 3pm & weekends) I worked, I would get small raises (1-2%), a small pension of, on average 40K, & free healthcare.
Now I'm paying up to a 5th of my salary in healthcare, more than most private sector employees. While we add more to gravely mismanaged pensions we have no control over. Pensions aren't an entitlement; we're forced to pay into investment systems while states shirk their fiduciary responsibility.
Healthcare & pension costs insure I make less than what I did 10 years ago.
I still have to buy my own supplies & needed things for my students. I still have this ballooning debt looming over my head so I can't afford to get a house & pay taxes the state needs. I'm still responsible to ever more paperwork & data collection to document I'm doing my job. There's no overtime pay like cops. You do it on your own time, your own dime or you suffer consequences.
I love my job but I'm too "rich" for assistance & too poor to get ahead.
43
This case will show that we can't rely on government handouts even going to school . If you can't pay for school you need to work and save is the next option. Our VA had the GI Bill . Originally it was only for Veterans. Then some one came up with a budget buster idea lets include family members. That was finally stopped as it was unsustainable for the long term. I think it is back just for Veterans where it should have stayed.
1
People working minimum wage jobs will be ready for retirement before they save enough college these days. The tuition is not the same as in your generation.
3
Well done Ron! It sounded so hopeless last October when I first read about this - it was frustrating just to read about. This is one of the amazing things that can be accomplished by free, intelligent press.
3
Many thanks to the members of Congress who worked to ensure that the promise made to our nurses, teachers, police officers and firefighters is honored.
This is good news in a news year that seems to be always exposing the enormous greed of our GOP leaders at the expense of the working class.
3
Meanwhile, could those of us do not have student loans stop getting phone calls, in violation of the do-not-call lists, offering help in getting our student loans forgiven?
3
This country no longer knows how to do education. It has completely lost the primary purpose of education, which is not for the individual to succeed, but for the nation to succeed. No nation can succeed when a great swath of its population is shackled by educational debt, when teachers are paid a pittance by design so that empirical administrators can enrich themselves - and vote themselves raises at the same time that teachers are forced to purchase their own classroom pencils and cannot afford to live in areas where they teach. Reduce the administrative load and parse out the salaries more equally. For instance; there is no reason on earth that justifies university canteens needing whole marketing departments - unless to shore up the wealth of the canteen director by empire building. There is a whole organization (NACUFS) that panders solely to the inflated egos of university canteen directors. And who pays for it? Anyone seeking an education.
8
"“The fight isn’t over until every single nurse, teacher, police officer and firefighter gets the student loan forgiveness that they earned.”
Fine. And, certainly there may be other occupations offering 'public'-type services which might be considered for such support.
6
Regarding Congress needing to appropriate funds for this program- the author stated that the number of students and the amount of their loan balances may exceed the funding amount. Why is that relevant if the Department of Ed is not actually transferring funds to borrowers. This needs clarification.
1
I notice that Democrats tried to fix this problem. Republicans couldn't be bothered. I hope in the next election the voting public will be made aware of issues like this one.
23
Good and helpful update, thanks on behalf of of my former students!
1
I went to a very good private college back in the fifties at a cost of around $600. a semester, including the books. I still remember my wonderful father calling me into the dining room to watch him as he was writing the checks.
The cost of going to private colleges these days is both ridiculous and criminal. College loans often sentence their recipients to a lifetime of struggle
and penury. I would advise any student today who is without the necessary parental and scholarship support to skip them entirely and go instead to a public university. And if that is still not possible without taking extravagant loans, then go into the Army, where they may eventually obtain the necessary wherewithal to go.
Colleges are not the only means to an education. Many people have done exceedingly well in their lives without them. We still have public libraries and the internet.
College loans ought to recognized as the dangerous things they are. Many people never escape them.
6