The Politics of Student Loan Debt: 2012 Republican Candidates Weigh In
20.05.12
The Public affairs of Student Loan Debt: 2012 Republican Candidates Weigh In
Posted by Shannon Rasberry on Oct 31, 2011 in Student Loan Legislation , Student Loan Programs | 10 comments
Super debt from student loans surpassed credit card debt in 2010 and is expected to hit the $1 trillion notability before the end of the year. With calls for student loan reform coming from Occupy Wall St. protests around the territory, several Republican candidates for next year’s Presidential election are weighing in and proposing changes to the way the sway participates in higher education financing.
Cain: Student Loans Should be Dumped in Favor of Working Through College
Herman Cain said Thursday to an schooling forum sponsored by The College Board that the federal government should not be responsible for portion students pay for college with grants and student loans. Instead, Cain said, scratch for college should come from state and local sources.
“I believe that if a state wants to plagiarize with college education, that they should do that,” Cain said. “Secondly, you have people living within communities within states that are compliant to help fund those kinds of programs. So I do not believe that it is the responsibility of the federal guidance to help fund a college education because herein, our resources are limited and I believe that the upper crust solution is the one closest to the problem.”
“The people within the state, the people within the communities, after all is said, I believe, are the ones who have that responsibility,” Cain said.
Cain, a graduate and now fellow of the board of trustees of Morehouse College in Atlanta, cited his own experience in working his way through college as a epitome for college students.
“I happen to know that there are a lot of young people who don’t come from important economic income families and they made different choices as to the schools that they go to, secondly, like I did, found a way to m my way through school because my parents were not able to do that,” Cain said. “If you craving an education, a college education in America, I believe that people can get it if they are determined to get it. They might have to vocation a little harder. They might have to work a little longer, but the fact that we have so many options for people to get an advanced tutelage in this nation, I think it is one of the big pluses that we have, that we offer our young people, that a lot of other countries do not offer” (“ Herman Cain: College Aid Should Be States’ Job ,” Politico, Oct. 27, 2011).
Although Cain said he had made no judgement regarding whether he would abolish the U.S. Department of Education, he said that he would evaluate the department if elected president.
Paul: Knowledge Department and Student Loans Should be Abolished
Earlier this month on NBC’s “Meet the Pressure,” Ron Paul said that if he were elected president he would not only get rid of federal student loans but he would stamp out the Education Department altogether. Paul said that the federal student loan program was a failed program that burdened students with $1 trillion of in financial difficulty at a time of when there are no jobs and the quality of education is deteriorating.
Paul blamed the intervention of the direction in education for rising tuition costs and cited the Education Department as one of five Ministry departments that he would eliminate as part of a plan to cut $1 trillion from the federal budget. Although the demise of federal student loans was not included in his arrange, he said he’d eventually kill the program.
“Just think of all this willingness to prerequisite to help every student get a college education,” said Paul, who holds a medical highly from the Duke University School of Medicine. “I went to school when we had none of those. I could drudgery my way through college and medical school because it wasn’t so expensive” (“ Ron Paul: End U.S. Student Loans ,” Politico, Oct. 23, 2011).
Bachmann and Gingrich: Obama’s Student Loan Map out is Perilous
While some GOP candidates proposed their solutions to the problem of student loan debt in the future, other candidates took cause c with President Obama’s plan to offer college students some relief now.
Reacting to Obama’s student loan foresee Thursday, Michelle Bachmann and Newt Gingrich offered harsh commentary. Bachmann called the executive order an “abuse of power” while Gingrich referred to it as a “ponzi arrangement.”
Under Obama’s plan, borrowers would be able to consolidate federal student loans issued by private lenders at a crop interest rate while participants in income-based repayment plans would be able to pay a smaller division of their monthly income and have remaining loan balances forgiven earlier.
“I believe it is abuse of power from the director to impose via an executive order a wholesale change in the student loan,” Bachmann said. She said the trade creates a “moral hazard” for borrowers.
“There is a morality in keeping our monetary promises, and I don’t think we should push that off onto the taxpayer,” Bachmann said. “The discrete needs to repay and be responsible for repaying their student loan debt” (“Bachman Says Obama’s College Loan Scheme is an Abuse of Power That Encourages Debt Dodging,” The Washington Put, Oct. 27, 2011).
Meanwhile, Gingrich warned that privately-issued federal student loans should be reprivatized before Obama “bankrupts the express country by promising to every young person you will not have to pay your student loan as a student. However you will later have to pay off the national debt as a taxpayer.
Source: NextStudent (blog)
GOP candidates blast Obama student loan plan
20.05.12
Republican presidential candidates on Thursday continuously criticized the Obama administration's newly announced plan to lower student loan repayments, saying it would altogether shift the burden of costs from students to taxpayers.
The plan would limit loan repayments to the equal of no more than 10 percent of students' income for 20 years, with the rest of the debt forgiven, as an alternative of the current maximum of 15 percent for 25 years. The president has said he will use his chief executive authority to make that change, rather than wait for Congress to act.
Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota called the move an "misuse of power," and she and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said that students would have to restore the forgiven loans as taxpayers.
"That's a Ponzi scheme by even Gov. (Rick) Perry's standards," Gingrich said.
The candidates spoke to a crowded auditorium at the College Embark on Annual Forum.
Gingrich attacked student loans in general, arguing that they let students function beyond their means while they're in school. Instead, he highlighted the College of the Ozarks, in Arkansas, where students pay no preparation but work to cover their educational costs, allowing most to graduate without debt.
Much of the colloquy was about primary and secondary education.
Businessman Herman Cain, who has pulled several points in advance of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in two polls released this week, spoke of the consequence of applying business practices to education by relying on competition among states for funding to using strong point pay to improve teaching.
"Just as in any other endeavor, we need to do a better job of providing pay for exhibition," Cain said. "Everyone likes to be recognized when they do well. Let's reward good teachers."
Gingrich agreed, trade merit pay a small but important piece of education reform.
Research has questioned the effectiveness of virtue pay for teachers. A 2010 study from Vanderbilt University found that offering teachers bonuses based on student doing on tests did not improve achievement. New York City scrapped its merit pay scenario after research showed it had made no difference.
Gingrich dismissed this, citing examples from the private sector. "To mention merit pay doesn't work would reject everything we know about America," he said.
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum also drew a coequality between the business world and education when discussing his support for vouchers. He said parents are the customers of the lore system.
"I sort of envision a model where school districts work with the parents to style a curriculum and educational setting for each child," Santorum said. "Why can't we have a customized teaching system in this country?"
Most of the 2012 GOP presidential candidates - Romney, Perry, Texas Rep. Ron Paul, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman and former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson - did not squire the forum.
There was a consensus among the candidates present that parents should have more options for their children through such things as right and virtual schools, homeschooling and vouchers.
The Obama administration also has pushed middle school choice, mostly by giving financial incentives for states to lift caps on the digit of charter schools allowed to open.
But while they supported school choice, almost all of the Republican candidates largesse also called for reducing the role of the federal Department of Education, or eliminating it fully.
President Ronald Reagan was the first to suggest such a move, when he came to office in 1980, the year after the conditioned by trust in had been created. Republicans again called for getting rid of it in 1996.
Gingrich and Cain said federal spinach for education should go to states in the form of block grants. Gingrich said the states, in adapt, should give the money to parents to enroll their children in whatever school they wanted. He said he would pass on the Department of Education to the role of researcher and disseminator of information.
Bachmann said, as she has before, that she would erase the department altogether. Santorum said there was "not a big role" for the federal government in his instruction plans, beyond leading the national discussion around education.
Cain said it was "beforehand" to call for abolishing the federal Department of Education. "I, as president, want to look at the Office of Education and make that determination when all the facts are considered, when all the programs are evaluated."
(This account was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, nonpartisan education-news retailer affiliated with Teachers College, Columbia University.)
(c) 2011, The Hechinger Piece.
Source: MiamiHerald.com
