Obama moving up student loan repayment program to win young voters

[itshim]

Originally Posted by cyclone8570

There are majors in demand, and majors not in demand. The problem is students will major in something that is not in demand, then graduate and wonder why they can't get a job...

That doesn't mean that there aren't enough jobs to go around-- but rather means the student didn't want to major in something that would get them a job in an "in demand" field.

I think a law should be passed that colleges must provide students with a list of the majors they offer, the job placement of these majors after graduation (i.e. 20%, 50%, 90%), and what the starting salaries typically are for these majors. Colleges keep track of this information-- but won't give it to you unless you ask. Kids entering college are often times too uninformed to ask for this. Therefore colleges should be required to provide this... Then we'd have a lot less unemployed people in this country.

In demand majors are "in demand" because its relative to the number of people who don't major in them. If everyone took an "in demand major" tough math, science, engineering, accounting and nursing degree programs--then you would simply have more of those people unemployed. Simply majoring in one of the above is based on the higher probablity that you could get a job, not that it gurantees one. By your theory, if everyone did in fact pick those fields to major in and graduated, then students would simply have their unemployment situation solved. Which is far from the truth because of the simple fact that schools are producing more graduates than the economy is producing jobs anyway, let alone in those specific fields.

Personally, I wouldn't recommend that anyone base their college aspirations on what the market deems "in demand" primarily because what's in demand today, may not be in demand tomorrow. Computer Science majors and Teachers (education majors) for example had to learn that the hard way. And colleges vary from one to the next--while some do keep maticulous records (usually the best colleges) on employment prospects, others offer little to nothing in term of anything valid.

I personally think the best way to alliviate this burden from the general public is to severly limit the amount of money that can be borrowed from the Feds in the first place. If the federal government will only provide a maximum of $5000 per semester instead of $15000 in addition to restrictions placed on the amount that banks can loan; students and universities will have NO choice other than to come to a compromise. Students will have to either choose less costly schools that will accomodate the loans provided to them, or colleges will have to reduce their costs and increase the number of grants and scholarships offered to students if they want to keep their enrollment numbers balanced. Either way, people will be economically forced to make a choice.

[residinghere2007]

Originally Posted by roysoldboy

Please explain how IBRs have been around for nearly 2 years but they came into existence before Obama took office. He is very nearly 3 years in office so I guess they came into existence when he was in office and had a Congress doing his bidding since Democrats controlled both houses. I think you are confused or missed the number you wanted.

My son went to a community school for his technical schooling in 2000 - 2001 and did have to take English, math, etc courses although the school he was in was just part of the college. He pulled his class through the fool math course they had to take since he had taken advanced math courses in high school and none of the rest had gone beyond basic mathematics in high school. The class was a pure waste for those kids studying to be diesel mechanics, but they thought it could help. Anyway, they did too many things that weren't going to help at all. I guess that must have been a cheap place to go to technical school since he came out of it with no debt and spent little of what he had saved up through high school.

This whole thing is nothing more than one group speaking the pure truth about Obama trying to buy votes and another group standing up for him saying that isn't what he is doing.

If you would have read what I typed out, you would see that I said that ICR (Income contingent repayment) plans have been around BEFORE Obama became president. ICR and IBR are not the same but share some features, one of which is that the debt is forgiven after 25 years and that it is based on income. I did make a point to differentiate between the two. Maybe you were confused. My husband got on an ICR plan back around 2004, way before Obama became president. IBR was instituted under his presidency but the ICR, which is similar, was not.

Also it is wonderful your son passed the useless math class but again that proves my point. Even for a vocational certificate or degree students are forced to take and pay for these sorts of classes and many people use loans to do so. Taking the classes prolong the time they spend at these institutions, which cause them to spend more money on their education and take out more loans. Most community college students trying to go on to a 4 year college degree take 3-4 years to get the first 2 years of a bachelor's degree completed at the CC level.

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by Who?Me?!

Hey, Kat, those people haven't any experience with college, not themselves and certainly not their "slow" kids, so they're just jealous of what they think "college life" is like....

The jealousy eats away their common sense(if they ever had any) and, as their brain rots, they believe that making education difficult for citizens strengthens a country!

Yes, that's what it seems like to me, too. Anyone who has ever been to college knows this is not the typical college lifestyle, just what the media hypes.

[Wapasha]

Originally Posted by itshim

All rational arguments but you still have to deal with the reality of the situation. We are currently sitting on a dead weight economy at this point. Student Loans are currently crossing the 1 Trillion mark. If simply "paying them" were an option, this wouldn't even be a discussion. The only option left for some will be to default on them, and that is worse than the outcome that Obama is proposing at the moment.

People aren't compelled to pay back loans that they simply for unintended reasons that they can't pay back. It's similar to the houseing bubble. The debt became so overhwelming that people just walked away from it and handed over the keys.

At that point, what other options are there? Lock the people up who fail to pay them? Great, but you still have to deal with the fact that a large portion of the debt cannot and will not be paid.

So we are supposed to take on this debt, with no natural corrections at all? The answer is to excuse the banks and government from making awful decisions, bail out the banks and reelect the politicians?? In fact, we are going to except the idea that the answer for bad government, is to ask for more government? We are essentially eliminating the risk involved, to enable more of the same type of irresponsible behavior from financial institutions and GSEs like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

We are now planning on paying off all student loans, and reward these greedy colleges and universities who have steadily increased tuition costs, far faster then inflation, and created these astronomical tuition and book costs. We have allowed the state and federal government to subsidize colleges and universities and hid the large tuition increase, so they can continue ripping us off.

If we do not allow natural market corrections to take place we will continue to see more repeats of irresponsible banks and greedy colleges and unrealistic home prices.

The politicians were stupid for demanding more risky mortgage loans be given out. The banks were stupid for giving out the mortgages for inflated home prices to people with poor or no credit. The people taking the loans were stupid for buying the homes and accepting bad loans. Lastly, the college students were stupid for going into tuition debt for tens of thousand, and even hundreds of thousands of dollars. And the answer to all of this stupidity, is to kiss all their booboos and make everything better, and saddling everyone else with their debt, mistakes, and greed? Wait... let me guess... TO BIG TO FAIL????

This happens every time we allow big government to get involved, things go badly, and WE need to go into debt for a few trillion more, because the new crisis de jour is ... TO BIG TO FAIL!!!!

[KUchief25]

From what I've read it will save folks ten bucks a month. The great orator was hailing this as a way for folks to purchase homes and save for retirement. Is this guy insane? Well they way they have been handling mortages ten bucks a month may pay for a 200K mortgage soon and the taxpayers can pick up the rest.