Reduce the Rate
So, after a strange series of events that included Jesse Jackson kissing me on the forehead (twice!) and being in a press conference (airing this evening on Chicago stations) I’m apparently handling the viral marketing for Reduce The Rate. I’ll be pestering you all to plaster info all over creation about this movement to:
* Reduce the interest rate on all student loans to 1%.
If banks can borrow at 1% or less, then so should our students.
* Extend the grace period before loan repayment begins from 6 months to 18 months for students who graduate.
In these tough economic times, it takes a college graduate an average of 6 months to 1 year to find a job. The rules should reflect this reality.
* End the penalties assessed to schools for student loan defaults.
Schools should not be held accountable for students who don’t pay back their loans.
* Increase Pell Grants to cover the average yearly cost of a public
4 year institution instead of the amounts in the current stimulus package–$5,350 starting July 1 and $5,550 in 2010-2011
Also, if you’re in Chicago you should come out to the Town Hall meeting at Operation Push Headquarters at 6 pm this Friday. I’ll be there doing upstart reviews and you can meet all sorts of nifty folks.
Amen to this! Especially the Pell Grant thing; it’s shameful how little the grants actually cover.
Amen to this! Especially the Pell Grant thing; it’s shameful how little the grants actually cover.
OH! You’re my new favorite blogger fyi
As someone who has been making reduced payments on her student loan (consolidated under the feds) for almost 10 years now and watched it grow from $26,000 to $33,000…I can get behind this.
In truth, I think that all education should be FREE – my one caveat to that would be that the college/university student should be required to maintain a 3.0 average. But reducing student loan interest rates (and I hope you mean for this to cover not just new loans, but also for all outstanding loans, no matter how old they may be – it looks that way on the RtR site) is a good first step.
Hell, I’d be thrilled if they just went back under 5% at this point. I hate the fact that my interest is pushing 8% while mortgage rates are hovering closer to 4.75%. Even if I consolidate my loans, it’s only going to push me back down to a solid 7% at best.
Not to mention, I’m on a deferment period right now because family responsibilities are keeping me from obtaining a full-time job.
And to think this all could have been avoided/lessened if I hadn’t failed College Geometry sophomore year and lost my state scholarship.
Amen, amen, and amen. I am dealing with a six-figure student loan (three degrees later) that just keeps getting bigger because I can’t even pay the monthly interest charge on it. I’ve got an 8% rate because my first loan came in 1984, when that was a low rate. It’s killing me. My only hope is the Income Contingent Repayment Plan, which will forgive my capital after twenty years of good behavior, or ten years of working for a non-profit. I’ll be re-posting this!
i’ll be mentioned this at my school as well, with all the school budget cuts because of the economy, they’ve been talking about a substantial tuition hike and i know alot of other colleges have been talking about the same, it would be incredibly nice to have a 1% interest rate…
There a lot of people struggling with loans…that Jesse J thing–creepy.
New blog layout is lovely!
I definitely like these proposals–we are looking at an 8% tuition hike this fall–and that’s the 3rd one in 3 years :(
I’ll try to help spread the word.
Here is a link to a story about the events we participated in with Reverend Jackson last weekend:
http://www.consumerwarningnetwork.com/2009/04/17/cwn-jesse-jackson-join-to-fight-predatory-student-lending/