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.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
Slash university student debt: cut costs. UC President Yudof and Chancellor Birgeneau ($450,000 salary) have dismissed many much needed cost-cutting options. They did not consider freezing vacant faculty positions, increasing class size, requiring faculty to teach more classes, doubling the time between sabbaticals, cutting and freezing pay and benefits for all chancellors and reforming the pension system.
They said such faculty reforms “would not be healthy for University of California”. Exodus of faculty and administrators? Who can afford them and where would they go?
We agree it is far from the ideal situation, but it is in the best interests of the university system and the state to hold the line on cost increases. UC cannot expect to do business as usual: raising tuition; granting pay raises and huge bonuses during a weak economy that has sapped state revenues and individual Californians’ income.
There is no question the necessary realignments with economic reality are painful. Regent Chairwoman Lansing can bridge the public trust gap with reassurances that salaries and costs reflect California’s economic reality. The sky above UC will not fall
Opinions? Email the UC Board of Regents marsha.kelman@ucop.edu
Every qualified California student should get a place in University of California(UC) system. That’s a desirable goal for a public university. However, UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau displaces Californians qualified for education at Cal. with $50,600 tuition Foreigners.
Paying more is not a better education. UC tuition increases exceed the national average rate of increase. The UC Board Of Regents jeopardizes Californians attending higher education by making UC the most expensive public university.
Self-serving tuition increases are used by UC President Mark Yudof to increase the pay of 80,000 eligible faculty & others. Payoffs like these point to higher operating costs and still higher tuition for Californians. Instate tuition consumes 14% of Ca. Median Family Income! UC is hijacking our kids’ futures: student debt.
I agree that faculty in higher education and senior management, like Yudof and Birgeneau, should consider the students’ welfare & put it high on their values.
Deeds unfortunately do not bear out the students’ welfare values of campus senior managements and the UC Board of Regents.
Opinions to UC Board of Regents, email marsha.kelman@ucop.edu