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Yea probably. College debt is a big issue in this country and the feds need to step-up and give the students an appropriate loan and not one that's going to really put a strain on these students when they get out of college.
Private lenders should be allowed to continue to operate. They should not receive any favorable tax treatment or loans from the government for doing so however.
As to the other point of this topic. The federal government should not subsidize college education at all as it offers few if any positive externalities, certainly relative to public education through high school. Almost all of the benefits of attending a college are attained by the individual alone and not distributed to the greater community. Therefore the decisions to attend a college and how to pay for it should be privately made. If a state wishes to subsidize college education for prestige related effects (we have a great public university! come to it!), they can, but I am not sure how wise economically this would be. Given people's migratory patterns now, the community or state they attend college in is even less likely than the country as a whole to benefit.
One potential downside of such student loans from the federal government is that they are not excluded in bankruptcies and any and all collection tactics can be used to collect them the moment they come due (much like an IRS debt). Most people can avoid this by having a job and paying regularly. Not everyone is so fortunate upon college graduation. Still, the cost is roughly comparable to either an expensive car or a house payment. The distortions provided by tax breaks on housing purchases (or the interest involved) make those purchases more expensive, just as they will continue to do with college education. Get the government's price supports out of the picture and the cost of (most) colleges will have to decrease, making private loans more manageable anyway.
I would recommend instead of greater federal loans and grants for this that we consider alternative methods of paying for college rather than fixed payments. Perhaps the student should consider paying the university a fixed percentage of income for a period of time after graduation until a desirable sum is accumulated to compensate them for the education they provided or a suitably long amount of time has passed (to avoid people who might be perversely incentivized by such a system to take a lower paying job for a long period of time).
Jared, WAKE UP! With student loans coming ONLY from the government, students will be TOLD what field they can study in. This is akin to Communism!
I just don't understand why you, of all people, have bought all this socialist garbage hook, line and sinker . . .
Like the public option, government should get into the education loan business, or else private business will dictate who can and can't go to school, and they will be the ones preventing Americans getting an education, which works to their benefit because the longer a person has the loan out and a low paying job, the longer they pay interest on the loan, and the more profit those companies make.
Consider health care. A common problem the GOP has been arguing is that we don't have enough doctors to insure 30 million extra people, but to me that doesnt sound like a future problem, that sounds like a current problem, because it illustrates our incapability as a nation to handle a problem currently. What if a plague broke out and those 30 million uninsured couldn't get the help because of the shoratge of doctors?
What the government can do is offer low cost loans to students. Students can get their education and the government will have more educated people in the field. Need more doctors, more students who are put off by the costs of med school can finally go… and the benefit to the nation?
Not only will the government collect on these loans, the increased income from the educated will equal increased taxes, meaning the government will collect on these people over a life time, and that these people will be contributing to the benefit of society for a lifetime…
Statistically speaking, a college education does not provide "increased income". People who are already in a high income expectation for lifetime earnings go to college because it is expected of them immediately by parents and their social peers. Very few people go to college and graduate actually increased their earnings potential by going.
Even fewer would go and complete a useful program for benefiting their earnings potential if the government handed out money for doing so. Doctors for example have expensive training, in large part because of medical licensing laws but that's another story, but also have high earnings potential upon completion of that training. They should not need government assistance to complete it. That would be a wealth transfer from poor to rich, which is abhorrent to any moral principle of governance.
This definitely is not true. I hope you are aware that we've had your definition of "socialist garbage" since FDR. Communism is mass starvation and communal life. Universities are far from this. Please do not over-essentialize.
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