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 years graduates owed about $29,200 each, leaving college with a long-lasting financial burden, Paul said.
Its 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.
Pauls 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 ...
Didnt borrow a penny. Had to delay one semester because I didn’t have the cash to pay. Still waiting to finish my masters because I need cash.
How about a bill forcing the propaganda machine to use their endowments worth millions to do this, as an example: Harvard and yale are in the 30 to 40 million each. These criminal enterprises should be forced by law to do so
Wait, you mean to say that people can’t already do that?
Why does anyone give an unsecured loan to an 18y.o. stranger?
they don’t
It was secured, by their future earnings and the fact that Obama made the loan non dischargeable in bankruptcy.
created a class of indentured servants.
Ditto that. Excellent post.
How is that a consequence? No one forced anyone to take out those loans. I took out loans, paid them back. No one forced me to do any of that.
What I find most interesting about this whole subject is the cost of the education/degree and then comparing it to the job market those folks are headed to.
I can understand that medical school costs as much as it does. Look at who and what you’re dealing with.
But, why does a Masters in Social Work, cost whatever the hell it costs, for the person to walk into the real world starting out at $40k a year, if that?
Another thing I find interesting is, I’ve never heard of any cuts with regards to the professors, etc. All I’ve ever heard was tuition increases due to rising costs. I’m quite sure there are plenty of retired “actual engineers” that wouldn’t mind supplementing their retirement incomes by teaching a class on something. Something they have real world experience in. Would probably drastically reduce the overhead in these places.
Cut the loan interest rates by two thirds.
Yes, but surprisingly perhaps those over 30 are the ones holding most of the debt. See below (2017).
<30: $383B
30 to 39: $461B
40 to 49: $280B
50 to 59: $177B
>60: $85B
Best way to combat student loan debt is to criminalize useless courses! If the purchaser is too stupid to pay for a worthless course why should colleges be allowed to offer them?
The reason BS degrees cost as much as STEM degrees is that BS degree programs usually make far more money for collegiate diploma mills than the STEM programs, which are far more expensive to run.
>>have the schools dip into their endowments and real estate holdings and pay off all the debt.
But but but those billions at each school are theirs, it’s like a married couple with a pre-nup
Oddly, California is leading the way in college disclosures.
As I look for a way to use my GI bill, I have found that CA colleges and trade schools must give information on number of graduates and employment numbers for those graduates. I think the stats go back for two years.
It’s an oddly sensible thing to see coming out of CA, given that the state is, on the whole, going stark raving mad.
You are right OBAMA screwed everyone with no bankruptcy. But no one mentions that. BUT There is NO hard asset, therefor the loan is unsecured.
It's a tax break if the parents want to use their retirement to help their kids. "Draining their retirement" would be their own choice.
Those that do not have a pretax retirement fund could still help their kids. They just wouldn't get the tax break.
I think it's a good idea.
Rand's bill deals with existing debt, backed by us taxpayers.
Your idea is great! They should do both.
The government has free reign to obligate taxpayers to back up any old program they feel like creating (for our own good). That's a big problem, and invisible to most people.
Good point and spot on. What’s so interesting to me is, cities and states pretty much require the folks that go into some of those fields to have a Master’s etc., knowing that they’re going to make nothing and quit after a few years, if that.
An college roommate of mine, liberal kid from the Boston area, did a summer internship at a Legal Aid office in DC, as he was preparing to head to law school. He was telling my dad how he was going to help the less fortunate. My dad was a union carpenter that worked in NYC. He just laughed. Internship was over and my roommate came for a weekend visit before we both headed back to school. He walked up to my dad and simply said....You were right.
Point being, there’s no reason for this and everyone knows it. It has to make everyone wonder just how much money is laundered through every government program and 501c charity, etc etc.
That happened before obama was a senator.
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.
There is a big area between STEM degrees and social justice degrees. What government agency would determine how much a person can borrow for their chosen degree?
The corrupted congress would never do that and help Americans. There will be blood.
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