Posted on 12/03/2019 11:12:04 PM PST by Farcesensitive
U.S. Sen. Rand Paul wants to combat the rising debt load engulfing college students by allowing families to use their retirement savings to pay off their loans.
The Kentucky Republican introduced federal legislation late Monday that would allow students to dip into retirement accounts to help pay for college or make monthly debt payments. Under his bill, individuals could to take up to $5,250 — tax and penalty free — from their 401(k) or IRA each year, and their parents could divert thousands more.
Americans collectively owe about $1.5 trillion in student loans — more than twice the total of a decade ago. On average, last year’s graduates owed about $29,200 each, leaving college with a long-lasting financial burden, Paul said.
“It’s just hard for people to pay back,” he said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. “Even people with graduate-degree educations are struggling to pay it back over a long period of time. We want to do something to try to help these kids pay off their loans.”
Paul’s bill is called the Higher Education Loan Repayment and Enhanced Retirement Act, or HELPER. He plans to pitch it in visits to college campuses in Kentucky in coming weeks.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Interesting idea, except the consequence is that parents end up draining their retirement, if any. And for those that don’t have one, they are left unable to help their kids.
Seems like better solution overall would be to (1) End H1B and related visas to free up good paying jobs for Americans, (2) implementing e-Verify to root out illegal workers to (again) free up jobs for Americans, and (3) deporting all illegals to (again) free up jobs for Americans.
“discharge in bankruptcy”
No school will want to be anywhere near the top of the list of grads needing to declare bankruptcy; their diplomas will be regarded useless
they will pare their costs back to reality levels ...and offer degrees of need and utility to society
That would be a great idea, rank schools by default rates. Add in graduation, dropout, and (if possible), rates of students working in their degreed fields, or unemployed, it’d really begin showing the value of a particular school’s education and degree programs.
It would help if college loans were geared toward worthy degrees (engineering, science, etc). If you were taking gender studies, you probably ought to be capped at $1,000 per year, and no more than $8k in total loans.
if one can’t pay a 29K college bill, how does one possibly afford a $40K vehicle? I’m not buying they ‘cant’ pay, especially in a $15/hr min wage state. More like they don’t want to pay. Because it’s so much easier to let someone else (mom, dad, strangers) pick up the tab.
Maybe the first thing they should teach them in college is that they shouldn’t take out loans if they can’t pay them back? Just sayin.
Already there is reporting most have nothing saved for retirement. So now let’s make the rest broke by allowing them to spend 401k on a worthless diploma. Yeah, that will be a winner......
Illogic....how does one have a retirement account but they haven’t paid on their student loan???
They decide to contribute to get employer matching funds?
Bad idea.
Make Colleges liable for student loan debt for selling a defective product.
IMHO.....they should learn that BEFORE going to college and making the loan. I learned that before high school age. I worked at a university for 6 years, it's so sad. Many of these kids are like little children....(clueless in the simplest of things). I'm not picking on your post; I just had to comment. :) """Maybe the first thing they should teach them in college is that they shouldn’t take out loans if they can’t pay them back? Just sayin."""
terrible idea
have the schools dip into their endowments and real estate holdings and pay off all the debt.
need to take some power away from ed establishment
need to cut these beneficiaries of bad policy that they lobbied
make sure that after they pay it off that they have to fund all further loans on their students.
Better to quit guaranteeing the loans. Would get taxpayers off the hook, government out of something that’s none of their business, exert a good influence on choice of majors and on tuition levels, etc, etc, etc. It’s like a win-win-win x50.
Which would work against liberal indoctrination efforts, which have no actual value to the student in real life, so it’s even a win politically.
Every RAT/DEM is eyeing this as the how to pay for Single Payer Health Care even if they don't talk about it, because there is no appetite for taxing retirement funds and the younger generations aren't saving anyway. M2C
People do it. Makes no sense, but they do.
Bad policy, though, to make MORE sources of money available to tuition. That’s the problem now, should be working the opposite direction.
Huh?? I’m confused. How does this work? A student uses their 401-k to pay off their loans? Has to be after they graduate and been working 10 years or so right?
And/or ask Ma n Pa to pay off their school loans for them? Whaa? If a kid spends 4-12 years on a degree that doesn’t get them a job good enough to pay off a low interest loan....awe hell I just dont get it.
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