MSU community reacts to Obama loan plan

Who in their right mind on a college campus would be against this proposal? Unless they just got done reading Going Rogue, and thought that they were the second coming of Thomas Jefferson. Student loan debt is crippling, and if your pals on Wall Street (supported by Republicans) should be bailed out, so should our country’s future. The debt will fix itself with all of the extra money that these straddled graduates will put into the economy.

Yes, by all means, let’s have ANOTHER government program that allows people to borrow money they can’t afford to pay back. It worked so well the last time we did it.

This guy REALLY went to Harvard?

If you cant pay back the loan, dont you think you should perhaps go to school for something else. Its great to love what you do, but wheres the motivation. Dont spend 100000 in tuition for a job that is going to pay you 20000 a year.
Take some responsibility for yourself. Its not the governments job. Typical, everyone wants everything for free.

To person without a name:

This program is designed to make sure people can actually pay back (at least some of) their loans.

I have no idea what you’re talking about borrowing new money. In case you didn’t know, Obama didn’t create student loans.

First off, Glenn Beck did not create libertarianism. I don’t know how libertarians became the target of your vitriol “Anonymous.” You obviously have issues with people who expect personal responsibility, which brings me to my next point:

Second, loans are not against libertarian ideology. If I take out a loan, I am expected to pay it back including the interest. Why should the loan companies make money off this?

Thank you Matt, Leslie, and Weee.

And to the anonymous, I am on a college campus and I am against these modifications until I know more about the scope of who they effect. I think people should be able to afford education sure, but not at increasing the expense to tax-payers. Just as a thought, so when these ‘forgiven sums’ are expunged, who actually pays for them? There is some honor, dignity, and humility in taking out student loans and paying them back in full and knowing, I fulfilled my responsibility and am a better person for it.

Anyone involved in higher education must recognize its intrinsic value to the health of any society. The inflation of tuition costs over recent years will inevitably lead to lower social mobility and, due to an inevitable reduction in the number of people pursuing postgraduate degrees, will lead to a decrease in the quality of research generated in this country. This in turn will have a negative impact upon all sectors of American business and industry.

Anonymous, looks like you stand alone. Like everyone else is saying, why would someone rack up 100,000 dollars in debt and then go make 30,000 a year? It’s stupidity and this moron wants to reward those people. I know people who have been going to school for ten years and keep racking up debt just because they can’t pay for it and as soon as they get out they are screwed! Four degrees and not a pot to piss in.

Make no mistake: Obama is terrified of what’s coming in Novemeber. His popularity has plummeted, his health care program is broken, and people are finally starting to see that the “change” he promised is limited to huge increases in government.

So what to do? Cater to college kids and recent college grads, of course. Toss them a bone to get votes in November. Never mind holding people responsible for the money they borrow, let’s toss accountability completely out the window!

10 years is more than enough to pay off student loans.

I am not in favor of Obama or his ideologies, but I think is a good plan. Paying back loans is important but tuition rates have gotten WAY out of hand. I think if a student has been paying off their loans until they are in their 40s, they have suffered enough!

Our economy is coming to the point where it will be impossible to earn a living wage without some post-high school education and/or training. It is in the interest of society, therefore, to make this education/training affordable to every person who has the ambition to seek it. But doing that by loaning people money and then offering various schemes through which they can avoid full repayment sets a bad precedent.

Instead, we should increase overall gov’t support of higher education across the board, thereby lowering everyone’s cost to become a productive, self-supporting member of society.

Sounds to me like a bunch of whities who don’t want brown people to get educated…

R fonz: You forgot this point: why should only the super-rich or the soon-to-be super rich get into the elite schools? If I choose to be a social worker & help people for my crappy $25,000 a year (cuz this nation values actors & athletes more), you are saying that I should not attend Princeton? or USC? or any other big name, more expensive school? So the “little $ professions” like the helping professions should go to what — Peoria U while the future docs attend Harvard? Oh wait, that only applies if you are white, middle class. If you are a minority, the schools I mention will subsidize you! And if you are a foreigner, you’ll get even more!!!

I find it disconcerting that so many of the comments here regard a degree as simply a financial investment for a future career. Obtaining a degree should also be about the pursuit of knowledge for knowledge’s sake, enabling people to better themselves and then to go on and better society as a whole. Regarding the process as purely a financial investment undermines the whole principle of a university and will lead to an emphasis on degrees which can only provide a guaranteed financial ‘pay off’ in the future.

I’ll try that again…

I find it disconcerting that so many of the comments here regard a degree as simply a financial investment for a future career. Obtaining a degree should also be about the pursuit of knowledge for knowledge’s sake, enabling people to better themselves and then to go on and better society as a whole. Regarding the process as purely a financial investment undermines the whole principle of a university and will lead to an emphasis on degrees which can only provide a guaranteed financial ‘pay off’ in the future.

“And that is something that will benefit everyone in the long run. This is a worthy way to spend tax payer’s money.”

I disagree. I love my friend very much, but her American Studies degree won’t do much for me. I suspect it won’t do much for her either.

A lot of the arguments here could also be applied to a home mortgage. After all, if people had their mortgage forgiven after 20 years, they’d be able to put money into the economy.

our man child president said “I” 96 times in 70 minutes during last night’s blame fest.

what a self-centered dick.

IS – if you think the color of your skin is important to anyone but you then you truly have a lot to learn in this world.

Usagi – knowledge for its own sake is wonderful. You’d be amazed how much of it is out there FOR FREE. And here’s a bit of knowledge that’ll serve you well in your lifetime: if you’re going to pay for something, make sure it’s worth at least what you’re paying for it.

If your college education costs $100,000 and it only allows you to make $10,000 more a year than you could have made without it, then you didn’t make a very good investment.

See, knowledge is wonderful, but if you can’t apply it, then you’re a bigger idiot than the illiterate guy living under a bridge.

Jason, while your friend’s American Studies degree may not benefit you directly, I do believe that the advantage of maintaining such departments is that by doing so we ensure that knowledge is actively passed on and built upon. If we continue to slash the budgets of these departments, future generations will be far poorer intellectually.
Unfortunately this is inevitable if students cannot afford the tuition and my argument is that by reducing graduate debt more students will enroll and, therefore, provide support for these departments.

So….. What’s the projected cost of this gov’ment program after about TWENTY years?

…99999999999 Billion?

Wow, Obama. Way to try and make yourself popular by spending more of my future childrens tax money.

What a fucking moron.

Half the kids in college don’t belong there because they are unwilling to put in the work that the degree requires. In turn, they devalue the degrees of those who do work hard.

I say we up the admission standards, and start dropping kids with below a 2.5 GPA. Let them work in factories, or do other hard labor. They don’t deserve a degree.

What a STUPID president we have.

Yeah, lets tell kids that they don’t HAVE to pay loan money back if they don’t want to… Just wait for it to disappear!

Great way to promote financial responsibility, BO. What a dumb piece of crap. Financial irresponsibility is what got us into this mess to begin with, and now he is publicly promoting it???

Wow. Just wow.

Matt, I’m well aware of the availability of information in the public domain and I’m a big proponent of self learning. However, even with regard to published literature, much of this simply isn’t available for free and to perform meaningful research in almost any field journal subscription fees must be paid. The advantage of performing research within a university is that these fees are paid for by the university.

Usagi-

Everyone thinks college should be made more affordable. But forgiving debt? Why do you think the guy working in the factory should subsidize your education. May I add, especially if you’re persuing academia (arts degrees) and will not return anything to him? You’re effectively forcing him to invest in something that doesn’t matter to him.

And Universities have to be considered a business.

Loans Weeee,

I would argue that supporting universities through taxation is in everyone’s interest, including the guy working in the factory. Using a greater proportion of the taxes paid by the guy working in the factory to subsidize university education will enable US universities to remain globally competitive and, therefore, to draw the best and brightest from around the world.

Uh, a lot of these academia degrees go on to become professors and teachers, and if you think teaching our nation’s children history isn’t of social value, well than your a moron. Also, you can’t become these teachers without a degree, point blank. We have to have education standards or we get a bunch of self taught computer geeks who believe everything wikipedia tells them to teaching our children.