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Learn What the Student Loan Forgiveness Act Could Mean for You
Tweet Share on Facebook March 21, 2012 Comment (290)On March 8, Congressman Hansen Clarke (D-Mich.) introduced H.R. 4170, the Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012.
Normally we don't go into the findings of particular pieces of legislation, but the Student Loan Ranger thinks findings like this are refreshing and show Rep. Clarke is living in the reality most of us inhabit, including:
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Students Have New Outlet for Loan Complaints
Tweet Share on Facebook March 14, 2012 Comment (13)Last week, student loan borrowers (your very own Student Loan Ranger included) received some exciting news when the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau announced, "Our student loan complaint system is open for business."
We are thrilled the CFPB has begun to exercise its oversight authority regarding student loans. We're also wondering whether using the phrase "open for business" was a clever play on words or inadvertent satire, given popular opinion on the student loan business. We're leaning toward the former since we're loving what the Bureau has been doing so far.
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Is Student Debt Prolonging the Recession?
Tweet Share on Facebook March 7, 2012 Comment (25)Numerous people have proposed that forgiving student loan debt would act as a fiscal stimulus, and a SignOn.org petition created by Robert Applebaum of ForgiveStudentLoanDebt.com is available to sign if you agree and are interested in sending that message to President Obama and Congress. But there is also an argument that the nearly $1 trillion in student loan debt is slowing down economic recovery, primarily by constricting the still struggling housing market.
Because we're not economists, we're following Robert Reich, a chancellor's professor of public policy at the University of California—Berkeley, who notes that consumer spending is 70 percent of the U.S. economy and that houses have traditionally been the major assets of America's middle class. Those assets are in freefall.
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New Federal Initiatives Help Students Understand Loans
Tweet Share on Facebook February 29, 2012 Comment (2)Borrowing and repaying loans in any context is a complicated process to understand. Borrowing for college is no different; teenagers are expected to weigh numerous—and complex—factors and conduct a sophisticated cost-benefit analysis before deciding whether a particular school is worth the debt. And they are bound by their choice for many years after graduation.
[Find out why you should consider federal student loans.]
At the Student Loan Ranger, we like to help guide you if we can. The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the Department of Education have also been plugging away at deciphering some of the information you may want to look at when considering borrowing for school.
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Obama Proposal May Address Growing Education Gap
Tweet Share on Facebook February 22, 2012 Comment (5)Recently, the New York Times reported on the growing education gap between low-income and affluent students. One study cited found that since the 1960s, the gap in standardized test scores has grown by about 40 percent.
And the gap isn't limited to primary and secondary education. A separate University of Michigan study, also cited in the article, found that since the late 1980s, the gap in college completion grew by about 50 percent.
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Student Loan Debate Rages On
Tweet Share on Facebook February 15, 2012 Comment (1)The growing chorus of concern over the rapid growth of student debt is being heard in the hushed and hallowed halls of Congress and at some of our nation's foremost educational institutions.
[Find out why the student debt crisis isn't just about the economy.]
In Congress, where the move for reform has recently been incremental, the latest concern is that the interest rates on subsidized Stafford student loans will double from 3.4 to 6.8 percent on July 1.
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Law School Transparency Weighs in on Reform
Tweet Share on Facebook February 8, 2012 Comment (3)Law School Transparency (LST) is a nonprofit legal education policy organization. Its mission is to improve consumer information and usher in reforms to the current law school model. This week, the Student Loan Ranger (SLR) is interviewing Patrick Lynch, its cofounder and policy director.
Lynch is a licensed New York attorney with a J.D. from Vanderbilt University Law School in Tennessee and a B.A. in Economics and English Literature from Fairfield University in Connecticut. He splits his time working for LST and providing policy support for environmental nongovernmental organizations in southern Chile.
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Law School Student Debt Is Just Tip of the Iceberg
Tweet Share on Facebook February 1, 2012 Comment (5)Your Student Loan Ranger was intrigued by a recent report from the Center for American Progress titled "What Can We Learn from Law School? Legal Education Reflects Issues Found in All of Higher Education." In a nutshell, the report argues that the failure of schools, students, and policymakers to respond as the cost of getting a degree climbs and the chances of getting a job that pays well enough to justify that level of debt diminishes is not unique to legal education. It is the highly visible tip of a growing iceberg of student debt that threatens all of higher education.
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Students, Fill Out Your FAFSA!
Tweet Share on Facebook January 25, 2012 Comment (3)With college and graduate school applications submitted, applicants across the country are now trying to figure out how to cover the cost of their education.
Decisions about financing education are difficult because they need to be based on a realistic assessment of a student's individual circumstances. Some students may figure out a cost effective path, such as attending community college and then transferring to their dream school. But too often, guidance on education financing is either nonexistent or so ineffective that students and their families are left drowning in debt without a line to grab.
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Understand Why Federal Budgets Matter to Students
Tweet Share on Facebook January 18, 2012 Comment (2)Keeping track of the federal budget process is difficult in the best of times, and the creation of the fiscal year 2012 budget was even more convoluted than usual. We've attempted to keep you up to date on some of the twists and turns concerning educational debt, including the impact on Pell Grants of the federal budget compromise negotiated in April 2011 and the elimination of the "in-school interest subsidy" on subsidized Stafford loans for graduate and professional students that accompanied the lifting of the debt ceiling in August.
The reason we've been so assiduous in tracking these budget matters? Because budgets matter.
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