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Keep higher education strong with investment and local student loans

Business leaders know that education is the engine for long-term economic prosperity, so we celebrate recent news of record higher education enrollment, plus the lowest student loan default rates in the nation.

Consider these recent reports:

Some 12,632 new students enrolled in public colleges and universities this fall. More than 152,000 students attend Utah’s nine public colleges and universities. Those who have lost jobs know that education is the path back to stability. The U.S. Department of Education ranks Utah student loan borrowers best in the nation for repayment, thanks to an innovative recession strategy deployed by the Utah Higher Education Assistance Authority. Utah’s default rate is 2.1 percent, one-third the national average.

The basic formula for personal and state prosperity is pretty simple. The more training and advanced education students get the more they earn. Just two examples: bachelor’s degree holders earn $46,000 per year, compared to high school graduates, who earn $26,000. And the more they earn, the more efficient they are at paying back their student loans. The investment has paid off.

But this is just the beginning. The real multiplier of a well-educated population comes from creating a knowledge economy – a society of people with the smarts to create new businesses on the cutting edge of medicine, technology, new energy and other frontiers of knowledge. An example: an average of 21 businesses spin off from the University of Utah every year. Only MIT ranks higher. And all these smart businesses need well educated employees to grow and prosper and create jobs for the next generation.

So what’s wrong with the math here in Utah? Well, two problems. Investment and Washington, D.C.

Problem 1: investment in higher education: when it comes to enrollment, our colleges and universities are at a breaking point. They have absorbed 17 percent enrollment increases with concurrent budget cuts of 17 percent. This 34 percent swing decreased funding per student by $1,300, according to Bill Sederburg, Utah Commissioner of Higher Education. Many people mistakenly believe that tuition pays for a college education, but tuition covers only 25 to 30 percent of the costs.

Colleges and universities have laid off employees – some 940 in all – at the same time they squeezed more students in the door. This translates into more part time faculty, fewer class sections, fewer counselors, and delayed graduation rates. Yes, there is efficiency that comes with cost containment. But a 34 percent swing is beyond efficiency – it’s eroding basic quality.

These are difficult times for everyone, but Utah’s path out of these difficult economic times is investing in the right things, including colleges and universities. Our state leaders will have hard choices in the upcoming legislative session, but we can’t mess up the math of investing in our future by investing in education.

Problem 2: D.C. initiatives to create direct student loans. The reason Utah’s student loan default rate is one third the national average is that we have a local program that works. Most Utah students take out their loans from Utah Higher Education Assistance Authority. And they pay them back there too. All this at no cost to state taxpayers.

The Direct Student Loan Program would change all that. The president wants to have loans made and repaid in Washington, D.C. The problem is that a bureaucrat in D.C. is not going to provide the personal assistance to meet a borrower at home and help them figure out a repayment plan. They don’t send handwritten letters reminding them to pay the bill. That’s the service students get from locally administered student loans.

The Salt Lake Chamber appreciates the leadership of Senators Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett to preserve Utah’s low student loan default rate by keeping student loans local.

All in all, there’s much to celebrate about Utah higher education and also a lot of work to be done to keep our successes on track. We stand behind our state elected officials and U.S. senators to show courage in advancing the right solutions – investment in higher education and keeping student loans local.

Source: Salt Lake Chamber Blog

Dance Monkeys Dance!

Direct Education Loan process.

Sometime before Dubya left office, it was decided that subcontracting the federal student loan programs (Stafford, Perkins, Pell) out to various financial institutions was far too complex. For the students. It would be easier if everything just came directly from Uncle Sam since he was the one providing the $$ anyways.

And no, there was not an opt-out provision for those of us who already had loans out through a carefully selected financial institution that met all of our individualized needs.

Come graduation I have loans from Undergrad (consolidated with West Coast Bank), loans from 1L year (with one east coast and one national bank – both of which were selected by Law School without my permission due to some bullshit kickback scheme), loans from 2L year (with West Coast Bank) and those from 3L (directly from Uncle Sam).

Obviously my first step when repayment was nigh, was consolidating all these fuckers into one crushing loan of doom. Which I wanted to do with West Coast Bank per my previous meticulous research into their perks. No dice. Has to be with Uncle Sam. For the .

When I consolidated the undergrad loans it took a 30 second phone call and a promise to sign some shit they would send me in the mail. Instantaneous. Magic. Foolishly I expected the process to be similar. Alas, it is not. At All. They were even really helpful with that whole bullshit kickback sketchy East Coast Bank problem. Anyways, the process so far:

Go to Direct Loan website . Poke around for consolidation info. Find nothing useful. Call Direct Loan people.  Told to call entirely different people about it. Consolidation has it’s own department and website. To make things easier on us. Go to Consolidation site . Discover the Hell That Is Antiquate Web Coding on the online form. Mac people need not apply. Nor should the poor schmucks who have Vista. This bitch demands Netscape running on XP. Verify every single separate loan you have, it’s ID number, holder, servicer, payment plan, interest and due date. Organize by type (Stafford, Perkins, Plus, Pell, Consolidated). loans out on you and ask them to pull up your financial history. They have all the info in one easy-to-verify chart or something. Because that is how they used to do that instantaneous consolidation magic. Remember to flatter the Bank. After all, they are 1000x more competent than Uncle Sam at all this shit. A flattered Bank is a cooperative Bank. A cooperative Bank means one 10 minute phone call instead of hours of painstaking research. Relist loans in separate section verifying desire to consolidate. Relist loans you don’t want consolidated in yet another section. Apparently the two sections are not mutually exclusive. Discover online submission is still in beta. Print form and send it in. Learn that in order to send in the form, it has to be on the actual government issue form, not just a print out of the online version. Refill out the form and mail it in – along with a request for supplemental forms you need as Law Student. Wait. For Months. For it to process. Repayment Day is coming! Call Consolidation People about whythefuck this hasn’t gone through yet and whatthefuck you will be paid. Learn that each type of loan is a separate issue with a separate database and separate consolidation procedures. In other words, it is literally impossible for them to simultaneously access all of your loans. Much confusion abounds. Lesson From the Trenches: The painstaking form actually means dick. It is easier for them to just consolidate everything. So they do. Even if you specifically and repeatedly for a very obvious reason want one or more loans kept out of the process. In essence, they don’t actually read your form. They consolidate everything and hope you don’t notice until it is too late. If you do notice, you are a Pain In Their Ass. Process is restarted. With less than a month to Repayment-Day, this is bad news. Call separate number to receive assurance from Management that it will be take care of before R-Day. R-Day is just around the corner. Consolidation people are done with you. NEVER CALL US AGAIN YOU AREN’T OUR PROBLEM ANYMORE IT’S DONE FOR CHRISSAKE. Banks disagree. Return to Direct Loan site. Note that they haven’t processed the consolidation. Or the appropriate repayment plan. Call Direct Loan people. They admit they haven’t processed the consolidation and tell you to call Consolidation People. Who tell you to call Direct Loan people. Lesson from the Trenches: It’s just like when mom tells you to ask dad if X is kosher and dad tells you to ask mom. Head off the conflict by anticipating the response. ‘Dad already said it’s totally and completely up to you and not to bother him again.’ Sure, they may argue about the process later, but that is after you already ordered the pizza. After much misery, Direct Loan people offer and agree to a 60 day administrative forbearance. Administrative forbearance won’t be applied for 5-7 days. You still need to make that first payment. With Uncle Sam and all aforementioned banks that haven’t been informed the consolidation was completed yet because your loans are lost between the process your loans. Which they can’t do until after the Direct Loan people finish their shit. And yes, that’s right, they contact you. You can’t call them. Because you won’t even be in their system until the Direct Loan people process you and since we’ve already established they think your file still belongs down in Consolidation, this is not going to happen anytime soon.  You’ll know everything is fine and you are in their system when they contact you about how much you owe.  ON FUCKING MONDAY. Cry. . Yes. Does this process not seem simplified to you? As opposed to how it used to be. Where I picked my bank and only had one number to call for all loan issues and who instan-fucking-taneously processed changes to my account status in their magic computers? And who never had difficulty telling you how much to freaking pay when it was due?

Ah yes, I can see the benefits of the

Source: Feminism to a neurotic extreme