Student Loan Forgiveness
Let me begin by saying two things. Yes, this issue would help me, and Yes, I would support it even if it did not.
I will be graduating from college in May with a student loan debt of around $75,000. Between my wife and I, we make maybe $30,000 per year.
My question is, who do we bailout first, professionals who screwed up or future professionals who have seen the chaos of the screw up?
So let me make a drastic proposal. Any student at the 4-year level (or higher), whose GPA is above 3.0, and whose income (or their parents income) is less than $100K per year (depending on family size) should be granted full student loan forgiveness.
Not only will this put money that would go to lenders into the economy, it would be an incentive to students to go into the public sector rather than a higher-paying private sector job.
They do this for teachers already, but why not go higher. Anyone who promises two years of public service at any level gets full loan forgiveness.
No qualified person should be driven away from public service because they can't afford it. Neither should any qualified student be denied higher education because they can't afford it.
Throw in any other stipulations you like. Make it non-retroactive to a certain point. But it should be on the table for discussion.
Sounded like President Obama was talking about that
last night during his speech. My son is currently a freshman, and would benefit from this. I hope he's serious about putting this through.
I'm sure that someone creative could come up with a way
to develop a program where the folks receiving the benefits of this could repay the community - tutoring students or helping in other programs - with their time. I certainly think it should be on the table and we need to be creative.
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