Monday, May 3, 2010

Student Loan Forgiveness

Good news everyone! Student Loan Forgiveness is here...but not really.

Many banks and businesses have felt the impact of stimulus packages. While businesses and banks are being saved, it seems as it students are being punished for wanting to earn an education as school tuition continues to grow. So why not implement a stimulus package aimed towards students?!

Even though we may not benefit from this bill for our undergraduate years, we can definitely take advantage of Obama's student loan forgiveness plan. According to this plan, a student would only have to pay 15% of their monthly salary for 10 years or until their debt has been paid off, after college if they find a steady job. If the student's salary isn't high enough, then they don't have to pay. "Under the traditional 10-year plan, a borrower who graduated with $25,000 in student loan debt and whose income is $30,000 a year would pay $288 a month at an interest rate of 6.8 percent, according to the the Department of Education's Web site. Now, the student could opt for payments of $172 a month spread over a longer time." The website says that all loans made on "July 1, 2009" and after will feel the effect of the bill. But this doesn't make sense so i checked up other websites and the date of implementation is July 1, 2014, the year we get our bachelors degrees...hopefully!

1 comment:

Sandy said...

Is this the student loan forgiveness Obama talked about in his state of the union address? If so, this is way more detailed and I understand a lot more about what Obama meant. I think this student loan business is gonna be a whole other type of reform. How selective is the plan, like what types does it apply to and how many more regulations. This article seemed like a pretty brief and general explanation of what the plan really entails, but it doesn't seem possible or good for the banks to have such seemingly easy to access student loan forgiveness. If this goes underway, I predict a lot more restrictions and requirements that the plan will have. I also think that important because I think that the forgiveness plan should take into account not only the income of the graduate, but also the financial state of the graduate at the time of enrollment (being a dependent or independent) and also it should take into account the income of the parents at the time of the child's enrollment, along with other things. The government obviously doesn't need anymore debt then it already has.