Rising Interest Rates on Student Loans

In the article,”Obama: I’ll veto GOP student loan plan” posted April 27, 2012 by Sara Libby, it is stated that President Obama will veto the bill that proposes a stop to the increase in the loan interest rates by taking from the Prevention and Public Health fund. The loan interest rates are going to be doubled this year and Obama is trying to find a way to stop this from happening. The Prevention and Public Health fund is very important health wise, especially for women. It helps in the prevention of cervical and breast cancer by providing screenings to many American women annually among other things. Sara claims that this is “a politically-motivated proposal and not the serious response that the problem facing American college students deserves.”

As a college student, I am completely for preventing the loan interest rates from going up. The fact that they are going to double, going from 3.4% to 6.8%, just astonishes me and I find it very unfair. Students who need to borrow money are most likely low/middle income so why are they trying to increase financial demands on them? So many students already have crazy amounts of debt with the current interest rates and raising them is only going to put people farther into debt. I think it may even possibly make some choose not to attend college or some to discontinue their education. 

I do not disagree with Obama’s decision to veto this bill, though. To decrease funding to the Prevention and Public Health fund is not the way to solve this problem and I don’t think it should have even been proposed. The health of Americans needs to be a top priority and we shouldn’t be looking at taking money from an organization that helps keep Americans healthy in order to decrease loan interest rates. We need to look elsewhere for solutions to this problem.

Other sources I used:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-27/house-republicans-try-to-blunt-student-loan-flap.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/congress/obama-romney-seek-to-stop-doubling-of-student-loan-interest-rate/2012/04/24/gIQAlX4VfT_story.html

Problems with U.S. education

I couldn't agree more that our education system is in need of a huge makeover. In my classmate's blog, "Crisis of Education in America", the stats listed are horrible. The drop out and illiteracy rate are way too high. I was unaware so many college students would fail to obtain a degree also. I think it is right to say that this is the fault of the public education system for not adequately preparing students for college. I can see the high amount of drops myself just by looking at the parking at the campus I take classes at. When the semester starts, I can barely find parking if I am too early or run late, but by the middle to end of the semester I can easily find parking at almost any time. I disagree, though, that educators should be held accountable for all of our education issues in public schooling. I understand that some are at fault, but there are other reasons our education system isn't doing well.

For one, parents need to get more involved in their children's lives. Many problems can be resolved by the parents knowing what is going on at school and in their child's personal lives. If a child is falling behind, a little extra time working on those certain subjects at home can resolve the problem or a tutor can be hired if necessary. If the parent is involved, they can get problems taken care of right away instead of letting the child get farther and farther behind.

I think another big problem is also the fact that we have summer vacation. I know kids love it, but it is so detrimental to their education, which has a huge impact on the rest of their lives. Children in other countries, such as Japan, go to school all year round and the students are much more advanced than ours. Their school day is also much longer than our kids. If we put more time into our kids education future generations will really benefit, we could move back up in the ranks of education, and get more people getting a college degree!

I agree that we do need to put more money into public education. If we can get more kids educated now, it could costs less for us in the long run and also for future generations of taxpayers. The more educated and successful students become could possibly lead to less people needing government assistance considering the financial benefits that come from getting an education. This could cut a huge expense for the country since so many people participate in government assistance programs. Investing more time and money into educating our kids could do great things for our country's future!

http://www.cincyschoolzone.com/dpp/elementary_middle/elementary_middle_news/5-things-we-can-do-to-improve-public-education