Yesterday, President Barack Obama announced details of his plan to ease the burden of student loans for low-income graduates. He plans to use his executive authority to tweak the existing “Pay as You Earn” option, which currently requires graduates in debt to pay a minimum of 15 percent of their discretionary income per month and forgives them the rest of the debt after 25 years. With Obama’s new regulations in place by next year, graduates would only have to pay 10 percent of their discretionary income and would be forgiven of outstanding debt after 20 years instead.
According to The Los Angeles Times, under the current plan, out of the some 36 million American graduates with student loan debt, only 450,000 have taken advantage of the program and paid the 15 percent over 25 years. Many prefer to pay a heftier amount so that the burden will be lifted in a shorter amount of time.
Lowering monthly payments is a viable short-term fix for the problem of excessive student loan debt in higher education, but the fact that some current professors are still in the process of paying off their own student loans speaks to the remaining prevalence of the issue.
This is not to say, however, that all student loan debts should instantly be forgiven, like many of the Occupy Wall Street protesters are advocating. When students come to attend university and accept these loans, they are also inherently accepting the responsibility to pay off those debts in due time, so asking for full debt forgiveness is mildly illogical. The financial aid system in higher education simply needs to undergo serious reform and soon.
Perhaps Obama’s sudden call to action has sprung partially from the cries of Occupy protesters. Election Day is little more than a year away, and the president recognizes his need to be cognizant of his voters as much as the next candidate. As our current president and future Democratic candidate, Obama needs to make clear to the people that he is conscious of the people’s needs and wants and is equally as willing to heed the words of a grassroots movement as he would be a lobbyist for Google on Capitol Hill.