Doubling the Rate leaves college students Irate!

Mantu Nguyen recently wrote a post in his blog titled Don't Double the Rate and argues how doubling the interest rate on students who have federal loans is not in the best interest of this country that we live in and I do not think I could agree with him more.

As we look deeper into this topic lets take this article written by Arne S Duncan and titled Keep Student Loan Interest Rates Low.  The author provides us with several reasonable arguments against raising the interest rates on student loans.  He first points out how 50 years ago college was a luxury and a high school graduate could earn a nice paying job in the middle class without needing to attend college, but in today's day and age you would most likely need some sort of educational certificate to be economically viable.  That point is well taken, and it is the tip of the iceberg on this controversial topic.

He then goes on to point out that since 1995 college cost have risen five times faster than the median household income.  That little statistic right there takes us right to the core of this subject.  Borrowing money to go to school used to be more of an exception, not it as the most accepted way for how students attend school.  With tuition continuing to rise semester after semester across our country, more and more students are taking advantage of the student loans that are being offered by the government.  Two thirds of our students are borrowing money to get their degree and are graduating averaging more than twenty-six thousand dollars in debt. So now the government has this bright idea to let the interest rates bill, that went into place in 2007and cut interest rates in half,  expire. Based on the average loan amount, this will add more than $1000 in total cost to those of us with student loans.

  My question is why are they choosing hard working students who have little to no money as it is to try and help rebuild our economy? Putting people already in debt in more debt seems counter productive to me. Why not raise interest rate on credit cards or home mortgages? Or how about making sure these huge companies such as Exxon, who report quarterly profits in billions on a consistent basis, pay their share of taxes, which as of right now they don't pay any. (see previous post in my blog)  But no, lets raise the interest rate on the group of people who can least afford it. "Perfect Logic."

Our president is working to do many things to improve our higher education systems, such as pell grants, income based repayment of student loans, loan forgiveness for people with public service jobs.  Also he is attempting to double the work study program within the next 5 years, but he can not and should not be asked to do this alone.  It is now up to congress to analyze all the information and hopefully make a decision that is with in the best interest of country.

Student loans are the reason so many of us are able to attend college, and raising the interest rates of these student loans would actually seem to discourage future high school graduates who can not afford to pay for school on their own from even attending. Do we really want to take a step backward from further educating our students beyond high school? I would expect our answer to be a resounding NO! Doubling the interest rates would indeed make me Irate!