exactly. start hammering your congressional leaders, or do "we" not have any student loan debt?

I heard on NPR this morning that the increase would lead to each graduate having to pay $1,000 more per year of school.  Which means between four and eight thousand dollars additional for any degree.  So maybe people aren't up in arms because it doesn't seem like all that much money?

Granted I've not considered how the interest on that additional $6k adds up over time.

And I should add that on principle I agree with Elizabeth Warren that student loans should have the lowest of the low interest rates, for everyone, in perpetuity.

if i go here:

http://www.webmath.com/simpinterest.html

and say $8,000 for 15 years at 4% interest per year, i get $4,800 in interest.  i'm guessing that doesn't include principal being reduced as you pay.

$8,000 might not be much while your parents are paying, but for an architect with fairly low wages and little chance of improving that situation, it's kind of a lot.  $12,800 is even more.

i suppose you always have hope.  you could win a lottery, or get an inheritance from that nigerian uncle you never heard of that just died (assuming the email from the nigerian lawyer is valid).

It is helping more people think about the cost of education vs benefits and whether or not to take on debt, which isn't bad.  But at least for public universities the government loans should have an interest rate maxed out to match inflation+administrative fees, no higher.  No need for the banks to profit off them.

"No need for the banks to profit off them." But it's ok for the school to profit off of them and the professors and the landlords and the book companies and the software companies and the t-shirt companies and the gap and urban outfitters and every other retail store you find in a college town and the restaurants and the bars and the cops and... did I mention the schools? The banks have to wait 10-30 years before they get their full return. The schools get it almost immediately. Who's the real crook here?

And I want to know who told you that this debt they are taking on, "isnt' bad" All debt is slavery unless it's debt that someone else is paying. Instead of hammering congress on bringing down the interest rate, how about hammering your school board to stop increasing tuition? Or better yet, how about a reduction in tuition? How about schools encouraging kids to work and go to school part time so they can pay for it instead of telling them to take on this "good" debt? All fucking lies to grease the machine. Perpetuated from high school counselors, college professors and yes, even your parents.

Not trying to defend banks in this, because they play their part, but it's much bigger than just the greedy dirty banks.

Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.

this bubble is gonna pop. 

i think it's fairly obvious the real problem is the rising cost of education, especially since the value is decreasing.

the banks don't wait 10-30 years.  they package and sell the loans almost as soon as they're made.  investors of various sorts buy the packaged loans, and sometimes sell them.  if the student defaults, they're guaranteed by the government, so whoever is holding the debt usually doesn't have much risk.  as i understand it, part of the recent student loan reform was that the government was going to hold the loans so it isn't only the banks profiting right?

debt is good when you make more money than you're losing from administrative fees and interest

Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. -- forget about it.  be here now.

i agree with jla-x.  the bubble is going to pop.  i think the gov't has already taken steps to limit some of the overall economic trauma (of course they aren't going to help the actual students) but haven't read their stuff that close.

it will just come in the form of another bailout at our expense.

if you leave the country can they still garnish your wages?  just out of curiosity..

Education has been commoditized. Just like everything else.

There is no student loan "bubble" nor will there be. Almost all student debt is secured by the Fed. If students mass default, it may add to the federal deficit, but it won't upset private financial markets. (Now if the U.S. were to default that is another matter, but unrelated to student loans.) Even if there were a mass student loan default, because student debt cannot be discharged in bankruptcy, students are still on the hook for the money owed. As long as the student is able to work, he or she will have to pay the debt. This was not true of the mortgage debt bubble, an actual bubble, where people could essentially walk away from a loan with little consequence other than a ding to their credit scores; it was the banks and private equity that took the lose, sending the economy into a tailspin.

I hate the student debt system we have in place, but talk of student debt "bubbles" and "bailouts" is silly.

I wouldn't be so sure about that.  The fact that student debt is secured by the fed doesn't really matter... the money has to go somewhere, and is tied up in so many places that when it stops coming in there will be problems.  And its not just the people defaulting... its also the people that are barely hanging on, not spending money on anything other than loans, which will kill the economy.  Think of the spending power 20 somethings could have if they weren't paying loans!  A bubble popping is very real, and will probably lead to another economic hiccup.  

MIles:  everything of value has always been commoditized.  Its nothing new.  its just that the perceived value of a college education is much higher than it ever has been.

Yea what happens if you just leave the US forever with massive student loan debt, and never make payments ? 

Will the feds do anything? like Jia-x mentioned earlier 

"Will the feds do anything?"

Well, they do have drones!

Social services are  it supposed to be commoditized, and available only to those who can afford them. It is the job of government to protect citizens, not exploit them on behalf of insatiable greed. 

Meanwhile, you can get 0% car loans. Priorities a little out of whack?

but... but... they're giving everyone access to a college education!  because college education is a right, not a privilege!

see where they can get away with things?

The other side of the coin...

According to the Congressional Budget Office, $8.7 billion of the money collected in student loan interest payments actually goes to pay for ObamaCare. The CBO estimates that the interest rate on these loans could be reduced from 6.8 percent to only 5.3 percent were the funds not used to subsidize the healthcare reform law and other federal programs.

 
The profits from student loans are divided as follows: $8.7 billion goes to pay for ObamaCare; $10.3 billion goes to pay down the federal debt; and $36 billion goes to Pell Scholarship grants.

The 16 million American students who now have student loans are paying for ObamaCare out of their meagre incomes just at the point when they graduate from college and need funds to start their lives, buy their first homes and begin a family.

http://thehill.com/opinion/columnists/dick-morris/302247-loans-subsidize-obamacare#ixzz2UuPsXygZ

i don't know what 'the hill' website is, but i thought it was the onion at first.

they said the CBO says students loans are paying for obama care.

i can also say that the CBO said cutting taxes on the rich cause 4,834,000 baby kittens to be murdered.  i'm not going to back that up with a link to the CBO's site because they didn't say that.

the only thing in my life that is worse or more difficult in any way because of the passage of the affordable care act is having to hear republicans lie about the affordable care act.  the solution is not to repeal the affordable care act.  the solution is for paranoid middle aged white people to quit listening to talk radio and start cross-referencing their facts with the sources.

^ The name sounds good, but don't forget that this 2200 pages of legislation was written by corporate insurance lobbyists, that big pharma was exempted from any price controls, that insurance premium rate increases are capped at 150% of health care cost increases, that the government will subsidize private insurer's including profits, etc., etc., etc.

The only hope for Obamacare (which it really isn't, as it was written by congress and some thousands of corporate lobbyists - BO would have signed a MacDonalds French Fry wrapper into law if it had that title printed on it) is that it fails when it only covers 1/3 of the uninsured and Medicare for all is instituted. But I'm not holding my breath.

The government already insures about 1/3 of the population via Medicare, Medicaid and the VA. The rest have their lives and health held hostage for corporate profit. When it comes to health care cots, we're #1! And those profits - they are not "costs" - are far more important than the health of the people in this country.

lol french fry wrapper

It's Economics 101:  Government guarantees caused excessive amount of money to be diverted into loans to students.  The students were then able (in the short run) to chase a finite number of college slots.  That in turn allowed colleges to raise their prices.  The raise in prices in turn created a "need" for even more student loan money to be created in order for students to pay those increased prices.  Eventually the MSRP of a college degree reaches the point of being almost comically expensive, and a few spoilsports begin asking if the emperor isn't a bit scantilly clad for public appearances.  Then, the big adjustment to reality begins, which is what is happening now.  That is the classic bubble scenario.  Substitute "housing" for "college education" and the analogy is obvious.

The only good thing about it is that for the younger kids coming up there hopefully will be a lot more realism in the college/major  selection process. 

I read this somewhere in the forum way back. 

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/septemberoctober_2011/features/administrators_ate_my_tuition031641.php?page=all

'Administrators are not only well staffed, they are also well paid. Vice presidents at the University of Maryland, for example, earn well over $200,000, and deans earn nearly as much. Both groups saw their salaries increase as much as 50 percent between 1998 and 2003, a period of financial retrenchment and sharp tuition increases at the university. The University of Maryland at College Park—which employs six vice presidents, six associate vice presidents, five assistant vice presidents, six assistants to the president, and six assistants to the vice presidents—has long been noted for its bloated and extortionate bureaucracy, but it actually does not seem to be much of an exception.'

“The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.” - Oscar Wilde via CIV4 voiced by Leonard Nimoy

^ hma -- and your point is ?

Complaining about the cost structure at universities seems to me an exercise in futility.

Nothing's really going to change until consumers -- i.e. students and parents -- start demanding that the money they put forward to pay for an education really provides a high quality education that leads to gainful employment with reasonable compensation.  As long as students simply chase a piece of paper without meaningful and explicit expectations regarding what they receive in return for large tuition payments, the universities have little incentive to change.

This is the ultimate gamble... put your money where your mouth is.  I need a school with a football team to trim my tuition.

stone - "demanding that the money they put forward to pay for an education really provides a high quality education that leads to gainful employment with reasonable compensation"

This is where I was going with my point. Administrators contribute nothing to educational quality. Yet they are huge expenses. Up until the early 1980s the ratio of professors to admin was exactly the opposite it is today, 70% professors, 30% admin. This is not directly relevant to the argument of matching student loan interest rates to the ones banks receive. It is interesting to think about why costs are increasing though. Someone borrowing 100k with a 6.8% interest rate is insane. But so is someone borrowing 100k with a 1% interest rate.

hma - "Administrators contribute nothing to educational quality."

While I certainly understand that point of view, every organization generates a certain amount of administrative activity that is essential to the smooth operation of the organization. One cannot just eliminate all administrative positions because one cannot see a direct connection between administrative support and educational quality. Somebody's got to process payroll, order supplies, maintain the buildings and grounds, evaluate student applications, organize graduation exercises, etc. 

What we're really talking about here is the level of administrative support required to efficiently manage the organization. While your point about the ratio of professors to admin staff during the 1980s may be correct (I really have no idea about those facts), it seems to me that the real issue is what students expect/demand in the way of results from the university in return for the tuition they pay. If an appropriate cost/benefit relationship can be obtained, then the level of administrative staff becomes moot. 

As long as students simply chase a piece of paper without meaningful and explicit expectations regarding what they receive in return for large tuition payments, the universities have little incentive to change.

Having no experience they are uneducated consumers. They very best kind.