Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Bush Nixes Fair Payment Plan

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The White House said it would veto a college-cost-reduction bill that made its way to the House floor Wednesday, claiming that it fails to help the neediest college students and creates programs with long-term costs for taxpayers.
The College Cost Reduction Act of 2007 would boost college financial aid by about $18 billion over the next five years and cut federal subsidies to lenders in the college-loan industry. The proposed legislation would also invest in minority institutions, control repayment rates and create loan-forgiveness programs, among other actions.
Under the act, the maximum value of the Pell Grant scholarship would increase by $500 over the next five years. The act would also cut interest rates on need-based student loans to 3.4% from 6.8%.

More from Pedro de la Torre of Campus Progress:

This is wrong headed for a few reasons. While the increase in need-based grant aid is, in my opinion, the most important part of the bill, the increasing debt burden that graduates face needs to be addressed.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Or we could provide need to college students who earn it... oh, wait, that's called a scholarship.

Why force taxpayers to finance anyone's degree. Yes, there is value in need based aid, but graduates should be responsible for repaying their own debts.

Yes, there is some intrinsic value to having an educated society... but not as much as one might think once you dilute the value of that education and then steal the rewards gained by that education in the form of increased taxes.

I have a difficult time believing that it will be a professor that coaxes greatness out of mediocrity. So, I'm not very inclined to believe that the next Nash will be unable to attend his Princeton (or Yale) for lack of funding. Once again... need based aid is important if tempered with merit... at least if I'm paying for it.

Anonymous said...

What good is the education system that fails to teach debt based money system and monopoly of money?

Anonymous said...

Wow some people are just stupid
We all will end up PAYING for lack of an educated populace if other countries subsidize education and create hoards of kick ass engineers and techies i.e. India and China.
How in the hell are we supposed to compete? Fine, don't subsidize education, but don't whine when the US is no longer the economic superpower