Student Loans! Get Your Free Student Loans Here!

[De Selby]

Big business and big government work together? Who would have thought it?

Youd be surprised at how many people deny it - as if the government is more influenced by bankrupt students than the likes of Northrop Grumman, wal mart, and Goldman Sachs.   

[MicroBalrog]

Youd be surprised at how many people deny it - as if the government is more influenced by bankrupt students than the likes of Northrop Grumman, wal mart, and Goldman Sachs.   

How many people vote based on the notion they want their widdle children to get student loans? If you think that doesn't influence politics, dream on.

[birdman]

How many people vote based on the notion they want their widdle children to get student loans? If you think that doesn't influence politics, dream on.

Agreed, thats why Pell grants (originally for low income students) are now used by something like 25-40% of college students.  As has been said before, you don't secure votes through entitlements to the poor, you do it by expanding those entitlements to the middle class where the votes are.

[French G.]

Mixed feelings on this.  If you are current then yeah give them a break, but if you are behind, get a damn job.

Well, the precedent for home loanshas been ignore the ones paying their bills and bail out the deadbeats. I'm a dirty capitalist, but there is something whack about the way we do consumer debt. I had to call my credit card company last year and tell them that while I paid my bill every month it was hurting me pretty bad and with my good credit score and history was there something they could do to help me? No, got stonewalled a bunch, I figured that with all the switch your card 0% offers they'd pay to keep a live one. It took about 4 people to get them to finally allow that they had a program that would cut my interest in half but close my card to future purchases. Yay for me, jumped on it. Now if I had just stopped paying I could have just waited for it to go to collection and probably paid less in the long run. Doesn't seem right.

Home loan re-finance, went to re-finance our home note. By today's logic, a couple that has paid a 3,000 monthly mortgage, never late for 5 years is not qualified to get a loan whose payments would be $2400, a bad risk by somebody's math, this with both people's credit scores in mid to upper 700s. Makes sense? But hey, bail out the ones that are in foreclosure!

[MicroBalrog]

Agreed, thats why Pell grants (originally for low income students) are now used by something like 25-40% of college students.  As has been said before, you don't secure votes through entitlements to the poor, you do it by expanding those entitlements to the middle class where the votes are.

Wait, wait, wait.

Help me here.

I do not understand.

Are you telling me that if I lived in the United States, as a member of the lower-middle-class/upperworkingclass, with above-average-grades, I could secure some form of education funding from the Federal Government?

I thought Federal money was mostly available for the very poor, the very brilliant, and/or research that the Federal government deemed useful in some way, is this no longer  the case?

[De Selby]

Pell grants aren't all that great - they give you about $5000 a year for undergrad only.  Compared to the cost of a decent school, that's a drop in the bucket, and it is difficult to get.

Free college is definitely not easy to get in the US.

[birdman]

Wait, wait, wait.

Help me here.

I do not understand.

Are you telling me that if I lived in the United States, as a member of the lower-middle-class/upperworkingclass, with above-average-grades, I could secure some form of education funding from the Federal Government?

I thought Federal money was mostly available for the very poor, the very brilliant, and/or research that the Federal government deemed useful in some way, is this no longer  the case?

Yes, in either grant or low interest loan form.  Of course all student loans are now government loans here.

[Fitz]

Pell grants aren't all that great - they give you about $5000 a year for undergrad only.  Compared to the cost of a decent school, that's a drop in the bucket, and it is difficult to get.

Free college is definitely not easy to get in the US.

It shouldn't be easy.

Besides, at a state school, pell grants and low interest student loans make college VERY affordable. Don't need to make it any easier.

Cal state, for example, is about 6500 a year in tuition for residents. (i picked this because it's where i did my first two years)

So you figure 5 grand a year in pell grants, plus a multitude of easy, essay only scholarships. A little loan for the balance, and voila. Education

[De Selby]

Yes, in either grant or low interest loan form.  Of course all student loans are now government loans here.

Not quite - the risk on all student loans is risk to the government.  The profits don't go to the taxpayers though.  That part of the business is private, and to help our corporate friends, we've eliminated the bankruptcy protections that apply to any other kind of loan.

[MicroBalrog]

So college professors win, big government wins, big business wins.

America loses, of course.