Student loan | Would-be lawyer won't have $260K in <b>student loans</b> erased <b>...</b> |
- Would-be lawyer won't have $260K in <b>student loans</b> erased <b>...</b>
- Jake's Economic TA Funhouse: Walker <b>student loan</b> "reforms" don't <b>...</b>
- <b>Student loans</b>: Osborne criticised for 'back door' repayments change <b>...</b>
| Would-be lawyer won't have $260K in <b>student loans</b> erased <b>...</b> Posted: 11 Jan 2016 01:05 PM PST ');//--> In the Blawg Directory:
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| Jake's Economic TA Funhouse: Walker <b>student loan</b> "reforms" don't <b>...</b> Posted: 13 Jan 2016 06:25 PM PST Feeling the heat from Legislative Democrats and advocacy organizations like One Wisconsin Now, and in light of reports that Americans now owe more than $1.3 trillion in student loan debt, Gov Walker felt the need this week to try to look like he was do something on the issue of student loans and the costs of higher education. As a result, Walker introduced a list of proposals intended to show that he also wants to contain higher education costs, with tax incentives and slightly expanded funding for certain grants included. Gov Walker's press release supplied a list of bills that he says have been or will be introduced by GOP representatives in the Legislature (though there doesn't seem to be any listing for these bills in the Text of Recently Introduced Proposals as of this time). Here's a look at a few of these proposals on student loans and college affordability. For selfish reasons, I approve of the proposal on student loan interes, and wish the concept was taken to Congress, because the phase-out level of that tax deduction is at a point where a couple that each earn the median amount for people with a master's degree isn't able to use it. It seems a bit odd to not allow those who put in the work to get their extra education and income aren't able to write off the interest on the loans that helped to make it possible, because they get paid too much with their improved job. The complication is that 32,000 taxpayers writing off $200 a year means a tax break of $6.4 million a year, and given our state's budget problems, that may not be affordable. But I'll at least say it's a start. On the expense side, these items sound OK at face value, but obviously funding must be found to pay for those items as well. And as Chris Walker at Political Heat notes, the $1 million for the "Wisconsin grants" won't go very far, as the large amount of needs in the state requires a much larger commitment than that. There are also provisions in Walker's proposals to increase funding for staff that can help find students more internships (the WMC crowd loves their free labor!), and a bizarre unfunded mandate to require schools to send out financial literacy information to students, as well as mail current loan status and cost information to students (which seems to be a waste of time for the schools and a veiled attempt to scare some into not continuing their education once they see the costs and debts involved). Governor Walker also tried to promote the fact that the last two budgets he has signed has frozen in-state tuition for all UW System institutions, saying that this moved has helped make the universities more affordable for today's students. Walker's claim of a $9,327 savings over the 4 years at UW-Madison (for example) is sketchy enough- an 8.1% average increase would result in total in-state tuition reaching $12,736 in 2016-17 instead of the $9,327 it is at today (or just over $3,400), and even if the savings are taken in total, it reaches $8,192, not $9,327. That still doesn't mean there isn't relief there, but it's not as much as Walker claims it to be (Pages 20 and 21 of the PDF on the Legislative Fiscal Bureau's paper on UW tuition give a good history of the rates over the last 10 years). However, it's worth noting that a large amount of those tuition increases between 2001 and 2011 are attributed to cuts in taxpayer funding to the UW System, to allow the total amount of funding and quality for the UW System to stay somewhat consistent. That has not been the case in the Age of Fitzwalkerstan, as the UW's documentation said the one-time benefit savings of Act 10 didn't come close to making up the difference in tuition that was required as a result of Gov Walker's first budget cut in 2011 (it's on Page 21 of that LFB tuition paper). Now the cut of $250 million for 2015-17 has been installed along with the tuition freeze for those two years, meaning that despite general taxpayer funding being around $50 million less for the UW System vs 2013, tuition hasn't been able to be raised to make up that difference, let alone pay for higher costs over the last 4 years. Walker's claim also assumes that the UW would have used the tuition to offset increased costs in wages and benefits for their faculty and staff, but those increases have been far smaller in the post-Act 10 world, so there wouldn't be a need to raise tuition as much anyway. In fact, it seems quite likely that had Walker decided to adequately fund the UW System since 2011, tuition increases could also have been mitigated or outright avoided. These same goals of putting a lid on tuition would have been able to be done without sacrificing the UW System's quality and potentially reducing access to programs, both of which hamstring the earning ability of students once they get out of college, and their chances of growing the state's economy. This doesn't even include the crippling of tenure, stacking of the UW Board of Regents with right-wing hacks, and regressive social legislation that has made retaining talent less likely for UW System schools. All of those developments have compromised the UW's ability to produce a high-quality education that allows high-skilled talent to come to Wisconsin for college, and/or want to stay after college ends, and preventing that scenario from occurring would seem to be a much more worthwhile boost to Wisconsin's economy than tuition freezes or being able to write off a few dollars of student loan interest on one's taxes. So while Gov Walker's proposals on student loan repayment and college costs might be a slight improvement from the status quo, it still doesn't come close to making up for the damage his past policies have had on higher education and college graduates in the state. And this package of proposals also doesn't forgive Walker from avoiding the common-sense solution in the Wisconsin Democrats' "Higher Education, Lower Debt" bill, which would allow college graduates to refinance their student loans into lower interest rates, just like they can with a car, a house, or most other types of debt. Sorry, Scotty, but your misdirection play isn't going to fool any of us outside of the Bubble, and it doesn't come near close enough to handle the real problem of student loan debt and the reduced economic activity that results from that debt. |
| <b>Student loans</b>: Osborne criticised for 'back door' repayments change <b>...</b> Posted: 25 Nov 2015 09:55 AM PST Students during a protest calling for the abolition of tuition fees and an end to student debt in Whitehall, London. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA Students and graduates who have taken out student loans since 2012 will face higher repayments after the £21,000 income threshold at which borrowings must be paid back was frozen for five years. The controversial change – omitted from the chancellor's spending review speech in the Commons on Wednesday – means that on average a former student will pay £306 a year more in 2020-21 compared with 2016-17. When the 2012 student loan system was launched, the government pledged that from April 2017, the £21,000 figure would be raised each year in line with average earnings. It now intends to freeze this threshold at £21,000 until April 2021 at the earliest, despite strong opposition in a recent consultation. Related: Spending review 2015: things you may have missed in the small print "This increases the financial commitment of borrowers to repaying their loans," the post-consultation report from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) said, announcing the freeze. "In 2020-21 borrowers will be paying £6 per week, or £306 in the year, more than they will be in 2016-17. "What this means is that graduates would end up paying more each month than the loan scheme previously promised and publicised when students took out the loan," Sorana Vieru, NUS vice-president for higher education, said. "This is yet another betrayal by the government and part of a long list of political measures that shows complete disdain to students and their futures." Martin Lewis, founder of MoneySavingExpert who chaired the independent taskforce on student finance information, accused the chancellor of not "having the balls to talk about this in the speech and I'm absolutely spitting teeth over this right now". "This is a retrospective change to student loans, millions of people across the country will have to pay more each month," he told LBC. "This is a change going backwards, it's a change from what they said they would have done when people started going to university. "It's an absolute disgrace that breaks the fundamental bond of politics that you do not impose retrospective changes. Commercial companies would not have been allowed to do this. This was snuck in the back door, even though he mentioned student loans in the speech." The business department said it hoped the freeze would increase repayments by £3.2bn over the lifetime of the loans of existing borrowers. Related: What does the spending review mean for science and innovation? Labour MP Wes Streeting, the former NUS president who worked with Lewis on the taskforce, said the move "completely changed the financial conditions, retrospectively, that students signed up to in good faith". "How can students now trust anything the government says about student loans they sign up to? If banks did this to customers, there would be an enormous outcry. This change will hit hardest those graduates on low and middle incomes close to the earnings threshold." A spokesman for the department said the change has been made to reflect the reality of graduate earnings, which he said hadn't risen as high as they were expected to. "When the £21,000 threshold was set in 2010, assumptions had to be made about earnings growth between 2010 and 2016," the spokesman said. "While the economic recovery is underway, it is not yet fully reflected in earnings, so the threshold is higher in real terms than originally intended. "Making this change helps contribute to the current government's debt reduction targets." |
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