Posted on 04/24/2012 1:12:29 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
President Barack Obama, courting young voters crucial to his reelection, told a rowdy college-age crowd at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on Tuesday that he knows first-hand about the burden of student loans because he only managed to pay his back a scant eight years ago.
"Michelle and I, we've been in your shoes," Obama, who turns 51 in August, told a cheering, capacity crowd of 8,000 at Carmichael Arena.
"Check this out, all right. I'm the president of the United States. We only finished paying off our student loans off about eight years ago. That wasn't that long ago. And that wasn't easy--especially because when we had Malia and Sasha, we're supposed to be saving up for their college educations, and we're still paying off our college educations," he said.
The president's emphasis on his modest upbringing seemed designed to invite comparisons to presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney. The White House has denied specifically targeting the multi-millionaire financier with such attacks even as the Obama campaign has pointedly attacked Romney's personal finances.
Obama's stop in North Carolina was the first on a two-day, campaign-style swing through battleground states to reengage young voters who powered his historic 2008 campaign but seem less enthused about the 2012 election. His chief policy message was an appeal for Congress to pass legislation to stop interest rates on a popular student loan from doubling July 1 from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent. "I didn't just read about this. I didn't just get some talking points about this. I didn't just get a policy briefing on this," the president said to laughter from the crowd.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
The average cost of a 4 yr. private college education around the time Obama was there (late 70’s early 80s) was 8K a year.
I doubt he financed all of it.
Big whoop Obie
Yet, he didn’t hesitate to throw Grandma under the bus; while idolizing a father who abandoned him. Something is severely messed up with that man.
I was thinking the same thing. The only thing that would have made him sound more hip, is if he talked like Randy Jackson--from American Idol--and used the word, "dawg" while speaking:
Yo, yo, yo...check this out, dawg...alright?"
Don’t worry, the media will dig deep and uncover all the facts. /SARC
I had a grant for tuition, and the GI bill for living expenses, when I went to grad school. Wife still worked though, and went to grad school herself during the summer.
That explains the massive US debt.
We are so screwed.
HA!!!
He also paid off parking fines late too
From March 2007
Two weeks before the US senator from Illinois launched his presidential campaign, he paid parking tickets he received while attending Harvard Law School, officials said yesterday.
Obama received 17 parking tickets in Cambridge between 1988 and 1991, according to the city's Traffic, Parking & Transportation Department.
Of those tickets, he paid only two while he was a student and paid them late, said Susan Clippinger, the office's director.
In January, about when the Globe began asking local officials about Obama's time at Harvard, including any violations of local laws, someone representing the senator called the parking office to inquire about the decades-old tickets.
On Jan. 26, the remaining $375 in fines and fees were paid by credit card using the city's website, Clippinger said. She said she didn't know who paid them.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/03/08/obama_paid_late_parking_tickets/
That was 7-8 years ago too - hmmm....
He sounds like Randy Jackson on AI. “Yo, dog....check this out....”
He’s so cool. /s
Mrs. Prince of Space
Only my two cents on this topic. A guy goes in 2010 to Occidental College in Cal...and he pays around $125k for two years of tuition, room and board. In 2010 dollars....two years of Columbia for room, board and tuition equals approximately $140k. In 2010 dollars, two years of Harvard Law School runs $140k for tuition, room and board. Add it up for a 2010 kid.
The only way that a 1980 kid could run through all of the expenses...is a grant or scholarship, which the President has never admitted to. To have paid this off in his early 40’s? There’s a scholarship out there which he hasn’t ever talked about.
In terms of tuition at top-tier schools, the poorer you are, the less you pay.
Currently, Harvard, Princeton and Yale generally expect students with family incomes of $65K/year or less to pay 0% of their tuition, room and board. They are provided grants to pay for all of that. These schools no longer provide student loans as parts of their standard financial aid packages (although they did when the Kenyan anti-Christ was in school), so, if you're not well-to-do, you can go very cheaply, or even free, to some high-profile schools.
If you can get in.
sitetest
As I explained to you in a previous thread, folks going to premier schools get financial aid. At Harvard, there is little or no money for “merit scholarships,” but 70% or so of students get financial aid, which nowadays comprises nearly all grant money (my own son's package to Harvard this coming year is over 90% grants and less than 10% work study - no loans whatsoever).
For poor students admitted to high-profile schools such as Columbia, total costs imposed on the students and their families are very low.
As well, these schools didn't cost “$125K for two years of tuition, room and board.” Not in 2010 dollars, not in any dollars. Because college costs have risen much faster than the overall inflation rate for several decades, tuition, room and board at these schools was much lower, both in nominal terms and in real terms 20 - 30 years ago than it is today.
sitetest
He may regret cracking this door. Didn’t he apply for student aid as an Indonesian exchange student? If the fraud opens the door, we can kick it completely open.
Default for 21 years, then get a suitcase full of cash from Tony Rezko to pay them off one day.
From the White House Historical Association website:
Mrs. Obama’s journey began in the South Side of Chicago, where Fraser and Marian Robinson instilled in their daughter a heartfelt commitment to family, hard work, and education. Her father worked as a pump operator for the Chicago Water Department while her mother stayed at home to care for Michelle and her older brother Craig. As she watched her father refuse to give in to multiple sclerosis, use two canes to get to his job, and save money to send her to college, she learned that "the only limit to the height of your achievements is the reach of your dreams and your willingness to work hard for them."
Now I realize that politically, you get more miles out of daddy working hard to give you a better life, especially when you need to invoke his MS in the wake of an orchestrated attack against another MS victim however, they really need to get their stories straight.
Law school is generally 3 years.
Paying off the loans 8 years ago doesn’t mean he was in default since he graduated law school in 1991 and his wife in 1988. As long as they made the required payments they wouldn’t be in default. I think you have 10 years to pay it back without extension or other provisions. We’d have to have the details about their student loans, both graduate and undergraduate to know the details. 1991 to 2002 (8 years ago) is 11 years and since school normally ends in June that means the loan was probably paid back in 10 years. What we don’t know is the amount of the loans, were they paid on time and who actually paid the loans back.
I call bs
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