College Tuition is increasing each year while  the cost of living is increasing.  A loaf of bread that cost  less than a dollar a few years ago is now $2.50. Unemployment is still high. Employers are able to be very choosy about who they hire. Getting an education  helps you become more marketable. But how do you pay for college ?  Relatively few students get scholarships. Student loans are readily available and seem painless as they provide the funds to pursue your education. But when you graduate and the student loan payments now become due, it can be a real shock to the pocket book as you try to struggle to get started in life and you have $200,$400, $600 or more that is due each month for the student loans.   And that must be paid in addition to  rent, utilities, transportation, medical and other expenses.  The StudentLoanList is a place where students and recent graduates can ask for help with the cost of their education.  Have you ever donated to a charity ?  Do you know how much of your  donated dollar goes to administrative and other costs ? Typically it is just a small part of your money that actually reaches the people you hope to help.  At the StudentLoanList   94%  of  each donation is sent as a payment on the selected students loan debt.

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Election day is just around the corner !  Or maybe you are taking advantage of the opportunity to vote early? Both candidates have opposing views on many subjects and the student loan crisis is no different.  They don’t agree here either.

How does each candidate feel about the one trillion dollar student loan debt, and the tuition costs that have exceeded the rate of inflation?  Here are some notes from recent articles written on this subject.

Obama

Ended the Federal Family Education Loan program, and made it so that all federal student loans are handled through the Department of Education

Has expanded the Pell Grant program

Has eliminated subsidized Stafford loans for graduate students,

Has eliminated some aid for students without a high school diploma

Created repayment program that caps payments at 10% of income

Created the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program

Wants to take federal aid away from for-profit colleges and universities if more that 65% of  their graduates default on student loan. In other words, regulate for profit colleges.

Romney

Less focus on student aid programs, wants to boost the job market for recent graduates.

Wants to  repeal income based repayment plans and the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program. (Both of these programs were put into place by Obama).

Romney supports private-sector involvement in student loans

Feels that consumers should be allowed to make their own choices about education and the government should not regulate for profit colleges.

Wants to eliminate Pell grants for part time students, tighten restriction on Pell eligibility and keep Pell grants at $5,500.

Desires to reduce tuition inflation but hasn’t stated how he will do this.

Information for this article was gathered from   www.opposingviews.com, www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance

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With the big election just around the corner, we wonder how Obama and Romney differ in their plans to address the problem of massive student loan debt, rising tuition costs and low starting wages for recent graduates. I just saw a headline this morning that said the American dream is out of reach of today’s young people.
If you would like to write an article about the political differences in these candidates, I would welcome your article as a guest blogger. Send your bio with your article to allyson@studentloanlist.com. Looking forward to hearing from you !

If you would like to make a donation toward the operating expenses of the StudentLoanList, please click on the PayPal button. Any and all donations are greatly appreciated. While our operating expenses are minimal, they do add up over time. Thank you.

If you have any kind of question about Federal Student Aid, then you need to check out the new website  from the U.S. Department of Education. The web addy is  www.studentaid.ed.gov . It has all kinds of information about what kinds of loans are available, how to get them and  it also has infromation about what to do if you find out you can’t make your payments.

If you would like to make a donation toward the operating expenses of the StudentLoanList, please click on the DONATE  button. Any and all donations are greatly appreciated. While our operating expenses are minimal, they do add up over time. Thank you.

Student loans have become a “normal”  way to pay for education. Students who walk into schools without funds are quickly shown the way to the financial aid office. Young people are getting loans for tens of thousands of dollars quickly and easily. Imagine this person at a car lot – they wouldn’t be able to qualify for a loan to purchase  a used car, but yet they easily obtain financing for schooling with large  amounts of unsecured debt. After graduation they hope to get good paying jobs, but it doesn’t always happen. Graduates end up living back with their parents and begin life in a much different manner than their parents.  Dreams of starting a business are set aside as young graduates struggle to just make ends meet.  This is the reality for many young people today.

If you would like to read more about how student debt affects individuals, read more in the “Student Stories” section of the blog.

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There is a lot of talk about the student loan debt in the United States lately. One of the big questions is whether or not the interest rate for new Stafford loans will remain at 3.4% or increase to 6.8% on July 1 2012. Apparantly both Republicans and Democrats want to leave the interest rate at 3.4%, the big debate is how to make it happen.

My guess is that NO they won’t raise the rate. Politicians don’t want voters disgruntled about this in November.

If you would like to make a donation toward the operating expenses of the StudentLoanList, please click on the DONATE  button. Any and all donations are greatly appreciated. While our operating expenses are minimal, they do add up over time. Thank you.

This morning there was an article on Yahoo news that you might want to take a look at. It features graphs that shows the total  student loan debt compared to credit card debt and auto loan debt, and default rates on the three categories. You might have guessed already that student loan default is the highest, followed by credit cards and auto loans. According to the numbers presented: Student loan defaults in 2009 were about 9% and auto loans for the same time were just over 2%.

While not everyone will agree that borrowing your way through college is a good idea, the article shows a few statistics for wages, and some jobs will pay you almost enough during your first year of employment to repay your loans. Of course it isn’t practical to pay every cent you make to service your debt, but for high paying jobs the hope is that you will be able to budget in enough to get that debt paid off. The problem currently is that many graduates are not getting high paying jobs and they are unemployed  or under employed and yet still have to pay rent and other living expenses regardless of their low wages.

If you would like to make a donation toward the operating expenses of the StudentLoanList, please click on the DONATE button. Any and all donations are greatly appreciated. While our operating expenses are minimal, they do add up over time. Thank you.