Wednesday, September 12, 2012

On Higher Education: Student Loan Q&A, Value of a College Degree

Grad cap by katagaci
http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1193101
Answers to Your Questions About Student Loans, Part One
Answers to questions about public service loan forgiveness, options for people with private loans who are struggling with their debts and the impact of student loans on debtors' credit score.


This is a pretty good Q&A overview of student loans and how to go about getting and/or attending that type of financial assistance for school.




Finding the Value in a College Degree By EQUAL JUSTICE WORKS




This brings up the good question of whether the degree a prospective college student is going after is worth the debt. According to the article a degree is still a very valuable asset in this economic climate, but it suggests maybe to get the most out of your college education assessing whether your time and money is being utilized well might be pertinent. 

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Federal government push to collect on student loans amid bad...

Federal government push to collect on student loans amid bad...


Some great points made by this article:

*Borrowers should have the ability to discharge student loans in bankruptcy, private or otherwise.
*Borrowers should only have to pay the principal balance, instead of accruing over-the-top interest. (Especially in these difficult financial times.)
*Borrowers should be well informed before being approved for school loans. (Some borrowers are still very young. We assume they're immature in so many other respects, why not this one?)
*There should be a "statue of limitations on collections." (People should not be trying to pay back a 20 and 30 year old student loan. That's ridiculous. If they haven't paid up by then, then something obviously wrong. Parents should have student loans along side their kids. That's weird.)
*Why are people with disabilities, especially ones developed after the loan was acquired, being charged to pay back their loans, with interest. Ditto for other circumstances, like the guy in the article who didn't finish because of graduation requirements. Ditto taking old people's social security. This is also weird.

This system is obviously broken somewhere, most likely in many places. These things, or as many of these things as we can plausibly do, need to be done so things can be set to right, or at least set flush. With hope, sooner rather than later.