Student loan | Sen. Charles Schumer Pushes For Lower <b>Student Loan</b> Interest Rates
Sen. Charles Schumer Pushes For Lower <b>Student Loan</b> Interest Rates
Obama Administration Sued for Refusing to Disclose Data on <b>...</b>
Chilean Activist Burns $500 Million <b>Student Loan</b> Docs In Protest <b>...</b>
<b>Student Loans</b> Causing Housing Shift, CFPB Says | Realtor Magazine
Higher <b>Student Loan</b> Burden, Lower-Wage Faculty Found at <b>...</b>
Sen. Charles Schumer Pushes For Lower <b>Student Loan</b> Interest Rates
Posted: 18 May 2014 07:03 AM PDT
ALBANY, N.Y. (CBSNewYork/AP) — Sen. Charles Schumer is calling on Congress to allow college graduates to refinance
their student loan debt to get the same interest rates now offered to current students.
The New York Democrat is co-sponsor legislation that would let students and former students who took out a student loan before 2013 refinance their debt to get an interest rate of 3.86 percent. That's the same rate now offered to new borrowers.
"If you have a mortgage in New York state at a high interest rate, the law allows you to refinance," Schumer said during a news conference in Greenwich Village. "But since student loans are governed by the federal government, the federal government does not allow you to refinance."
Sen. Charles Schumer Pushes For Lower Student Loan Interest Rates
WCBS 880's Monica Miller reports.
Schumer said the legislation would save 2.5 million New Yorkers an estimated $12.5 billion over the life of their loans. The legislation would apply to both public and private student loans.
The
average student loan debt in New York is $30,000. Some loan rates are as high as 14 percent, Schumer said.
"I am currently about a little over $29,000 in debt with the the 6.9 percent interest rate," Mercedes, at St. John's University alum, told WCBS 880′s Monica Miller.
Mercedes said that college debt is having an impact on her entire family, especially her brother.
"He is a junior in college right now, and college is probably not going to be a possibility for him," she said.
Tiffany Brown, who has tens of thousands of dollars in debt after graduating from Queens College, said the legislation would give her more options.
"It will also make the decision for me to possibly go to law school much easier," Brown said.
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Obama Administration Sued for Refusing to Disclose Data on <b>...</b>
Posted: 20 May 2014 11:27 AM PDT
Lucian3D/Shutterstock
President Barack Obama has taken several steps over the past few years to address the $1 trillion problem of
student loan debt. He's pushed loan forgiveness programs and efforts to help borrowers reduce payments. One thing that apparently isn't factoring into his plans, though, is reining in abusive debt collectors that the Department of Education hires to collect student loans debt when people can't pay.
More than $94 billion of the nation's student loan debt was in default as of September 2013, according to a March report from the Government Accountability Office. And the percentage of people defaulting on school loans has increased steadily for six years in a row. In 2011, the Department of Education paid private debt collectors $1 billion to try to collect on that debt—a number that is expected to double by 2016. The tactics used by those debt collectors range from harassing to downright abusive. In March 2012, Bloomberg reported that three of the companies working for the Department of Education had
settled federal or state charges that they'd engaged in abusive debt collection.
Consumer advocates have found that the debt collectors routinely violate consumer protection laws when trying to collect on student loan debt, which is especially problematic given that some of those firms are supposed to be helping borrowers "rehabilitate" their loans to reduce their debt burden. The student loan collectors have vast power, including the ability to garnish wages and seize tax refunds—tools not normally available to companies collecting ordinary consumer debt.
In March 2012, the Department of Education
said it was reviewing the commissions it paid debt collectors in the wake of complaints that the contractors were abusing borrowers. But so far, there's not much evidence that anything has changed. The GAO report
found that the Education Department still does little to oversee student-loan debt collectors, and has done little more than provide "feedback" when alerted to abuses.
The National Consumer Law Center has been highlighting the problems with student-loan debt collectors for a few years now, and watchdogging the Department of Education's work in this area. Or at least it's been trying to. Since 2012, the non-profit advocacy group has filed multiple Freedom of Information Act requests for information about the government's relationships with student-loan debt collectors. But so far,
the Obama administration has stonewalled the requests. On Monday, after more than year attempting to peel back the secrecy around the debt collection contracts, NCLC filed a lawsuit demanding that the Department of Education comply with the Freedom of Information Act and release the data.
"Collection agencies routinely violate consumer protection laws and prioritize profits over borrower rights," says Persis Yu, an attorney with NCLC. "Abuses by these debt collection agencies cause significant hardship to the millions of students struggling to pay off their federal student loans. Taxpayers and student loan borrowers have a right to information about the impact of the Education Department's policy of paying outside debt collectors on the rights of borrowers. The Education Department should not insulate itself from public scrutiny."
Chilean Activist Burns $500 Million <b>Student Loan</b> Docs In Protest <b>...</b>
Posted: 19 May 2014 08:15 PM PDT
Submitted by Mike Krieger of
Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
This story struck a particular chord with me considering my mother left Chile for the United States back in the early 70′s after Salvador Allende was elected President. She was able to instinctively see the writing on the wall, and got out ahead of the political chaos, military coup and dictatorship that followed.
Beyond my own person connection, I find this to be a very important story in that it further highlights the fact that the current war/civil unrest cycle is an interconnected global phenomenon. Since the parasitic Central Bank driven financial system is more or less entrenched in every country on earth, every country on earth is experiencing increased concentrations of wealth into the pockets of a handful of oligarchs. Meanwhile, those nations which heretofore had a middle class are finding that this entire socio-economic class is disappearing into the dustbin of history via a variety of methods, not the least of which is criminal quantities of student loans. These loans are pushing an entire generation into inescapable serfdom, while many
university administrators are enriching themselves at their expense.
So it appears student loan based debt serfdom is also a major issue in Chile, and one activist, known as "Papas Fritas," decided to take matters into his own hands. During a takeover at Universidad del Mar, he was able to get his hands on $500 million of student debt, which he subsequently torched.
This is what remains of the debt. A pile of ashes:
The Independent covered the story, here are some excerpts:
An activist in Chile has burnt documents representing $500 million (£300 million) worth of student debt during a protest at Universidad del Mar.
Francisco Tapia, who is also known as "Papas Fritas", claimed that he had "freed" the students by setting fire to the debt papers or "pagarés"
In the five-minute video the artist and activist, translated by the Chilean news site
Santiago Times, he passionately says: "You don't have to pay another peso [of your student loan debt]. We have to lose our fear, our fear of being thought of as criminals because we're poor. I am just like you, living a s**tty life, and I live it day by day — this is my act of love for you."
While his act of defiance will have brought smile to those now debt-free students, it will be difficult for the university to recoup the losses and the higher institution may have to individually sue students to get the get the debt repaid.
There have been protests in Chile since 2011 calling for reform of the university system and for free high-quality education. It was hoped the newly-elected president, Michelle Bachelet, would be bring reform, after a campaign promising drastic change to the education system.
However, two months on, tens of thousands of students have taken again to the street calling again for changes promised.
Last week there were clashes on the street of the Chilean capital, Santiago, as demonstrations turned violent.
Now here's the video. It has over 70,000 views. Unfortunately, there are no english subtitles, but if you understand even a little Spanish you'll get the point.
And his passion needs no translation.
The global masses are getting fed up with the bullshit system we are forced to live under, and rightly so. The key is that we must ensure that what comes next is better and not just another reactionary centralized system.
We must evolve and move toward a world characterized by decentralization, freedom and a creative spirit.
Full Independent article
here.
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<b>Student Loans</b> Causing Housing Shift, CFPB Says | Realtor Magazine
Posted: 20 May 2014 12:00 AM PDT
The increasing problem of student-loan debt is causing a sea change in the housing market, Richard Cordray, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, told a crowd at the Boulder Summer Conference on Consumer Financial Decision Making.
"According to an analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, for the first time in at least a decade, households with student-loan debt are less likely to have a mortgage than those without student-loan debt," Cordray said. "We are seeing more student-loan borrowers shying away from making this investment."
Forty-nine percent of Americans recently surveyed by the National Association of REALTORS® said that student loan debt is a "huge obstacle" to home ownership.
Lawmakers and regulators are targeting the operation of student-loan servicers. Cordray said the CFPB is working with other regulators to provide incentives to student-loan servicers to provide more modifications and refinancing options for private student loans. CFPB also plans to conduct more investigations into student-loan servicers who are making it difficult for borrowers to prepay portions of the loan or charge excessive fees for servicing processing errors, and the agency plans to fine those found at fault.
Source: "
CFPB Director: Student Loans Are Killing the Drive to Buy Homes," HousingWire (May 19, 2014)
Read more:
One of the Biggest Obstacles Facing Young Buyers
Higher <b>Student Loan</b> Burden, Lower-Wage Faculty Found at <b>...</b>
Posted: 19 May 2014 08:18 AM PDT
The fact that we're in the midst of a student debt crisis will seem obvious to anyone who's opened up their statement from Sallie Mae in the past few years. But the
skyrocketing debt levels (average loan balances are at $29,400, and there's been an increase in total national debt from $300 billion to $1.1 trillion in the last ten years) isn't just a problem for individuals, it's also having broader implications for the economy in general.
In the years since the financial crash of 2008, the percentage of people with student loan debt who have also taken a mortgage
has plummeted. In short, the numbers seem to suggest, young people aren't buying homes because they're already burdened by paying off their high-priced education.
There's some good news, however. Well, not for students, because screw them, but for the CEOs of the universities that are putting so many of them underwater. A report from the
Institute for Policy Studies shows that the soaring pay rates for top executives at institutions of higher learning seems to go hand in hand with high rates of student loan debt, not to mention low-wage faculty labor.
As the New York Times points out, "at the 25 public universities with the highest-paid presidents, both student debt and the use of part-time adjunct faculty grew far faster than at the average state university from 2005 to 2012."
Some highlights from the report "
The One Percent at State U":
The student debt crisis is worse at state schools with the highest-paid presidents. The sharpest rise in student debt at the top 25 occurred when executive compensation soared the highest.
As students went deeper in debt, administrative spending outstripped scholarship spending by more than 2 to 1 at state schools with the highest-paid presidents.
As presidents' pay at the top 25 skyrocketed after 2008, part-time adjunct faculty increased more than twice as fast as the national average at all universities.
At state schools with the highest-paid presidents, permanent faculty declined dramatically as a percentage of all faculty. By fall 2012, part-time and contingent faculty at the top 25 outnumbered permanent faculty for the first time.
Average executive pay at the top 25 rose to nearly $1 million by 2012 – increasing more than twice as fast as the national average at public research universities.
"The high executive pay obviously isn't the direct cause of higher student debt, or cuts in labor spending," Marjorie Wood, the author of the report with Andrew Erwin, told the Times. "But if you think about it in terms of the allocation of resources, it does seem to be the tip of a very large iceberg, with universities that have top-heavy executive spending also having more adjuncts, more tuition increases and more administrative spending."
In other words: Just like in the private sector, the public university field is disproportionately allocating funds to the heads, while ignoring the people who actually make it possible.
The Chronicle of Higher Education
released numbers this weekend that surveyed executive compensation for 257 college presidents. The median pay for those they surveyed was $478,896, with nine making more than $1 million.
Nice work if you can get it.
Any work is nice work if you can get it these days, actually.
In the meantime, while underemployment and unemployment continues for college graduates, defaults on student loans continue to be a problem. There are roughly 37 million borrowers with outstanding student loans in the country. "As of 2012, there are now more than $8 billion in defaulted private loans, or 850,000 distinct loans in default," as the American Student Assistance organization points out in a thorough breakdown of the student loan picture
here.
None of this should come as a surprise in our culture of executive privilege and workers-be-damned indifference, but one has to wonder if these stewards of higher learning would like the lessons they're imparting to their students. That is if they ever climbed down from the literal ivy ziggurats we're erecting for them with our tuition long enough for them to notice.
[Image via Shutterstock]
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>> Luke O'Neil is a journalist and blogger in Boston. Follow him on Twitter (
@lukeoneil47).
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