Fuck you. We're already paying 6% variable and the only likely direction is already up. Your talking about a group of people for which 50% can't find employment that actually uses the skills they were promised were valuable. Older people are working longer because of the tough economic times and so fresh graduates can't find jobs. How much more burden do you expect us to bear? Our "elders" have already given us a pile of steaming shit for a country when they were handed a land of opportunity. We won't take much more abuse before you start seeing violence. I personally am more anti-violence than almost anyone my age I know, but I can't control my peers.
whoa buddy, agree with you on the generational warfare, agree that times are tough, where exactly do you propose the money comes from?
I'm okay with the other suggestions made by bitcoinbear. In fact, I'm all for reform of the student loan industry. But raising interest rates on one of the groups that is struggling the hardest is outrageous.
Yes, we absolutely need to put restrictions on who can take out student loans (GPA requirements, minimum # of hours, no alcohol related offenses, etc). I hate all forms of government guaranteed loans, but you can't fuck over those of us who have worked hard to better ourselves so we can provide useful labor.
I am in grad school now, and my education is paid for by my GTA position, but I have about $20k debt still to be paid down from undergraduate. I graduated early with a 3.4 GPA from a great engineering school. I have made every payment on time or early and I have even made several extra payments on my loans. How am I rewarded? By paying more interest than someone who takes a mortgage out on their home. By suggestions that I should be paying more. By suggestions that my friends, who are still smart but not quite as talented as me, who are struggling to pay the bills each month because they can't get a job outside of retail of food, pay more. Whoa buddy yourself. That shit pisses my off.
The point is that everybody will have to give a little for this to work. If everybody says "Ok, the list is good except for the one point that effects me", then everything will get taken off the list and nothing will get done.
Once we pay down the debt we can go back to subsidizing student loans (although perhaps not quite so much, we don't want to get back into debt as a country).
If you cannot afford to pay back the student loans after you get out of college, perhaps you should reconsider taking them in the first place. (and by "you" I am not talking to you specifically, but the general you of all the people considering taking out student loans.) Many people take out student loans and then study subjects that will not help them pay back those loans. I even saw an article that says a "computer science" degree is basically worthless, companies are more interested in actual experience than a piece of paper.
Every suggestion you gave other than "cut federal employee pay by 10%" affects me.
As for the student loan issue, like I said, I am all for being drastically more restrictive on who can take them out. But that won't change the past where dumbasses thought it was a good idea to hand them out like candy and children were told that borrowing money to go to college was the only way to succeed. The reason they have to be subsidized just to get it down to 6% is because the default rate is high due to the ongoing structure of the program. But punishing me, who has paid as much or more than I owe every month since graduation is not fair. First, fix the problem by adding restrictions, then maybe we can work something out. By the way, when I decided to take them out, the rate was 4%. It's already up to 6% and slowly rising. As far as I can see, it is the only credit based industry in this country where interests rates are rising. They have gone down for everyone else.
Oh, and while you're at it, let the housing market bottom instead of spending $40 billion/month subsidizing it. That's about $130 per person per month in case you haven't done the math. And yes, I'm a homeowner, so that would hurt me too, but it's more fair than raising interest rates on student loans. Oh, and how about not bailing out corporations. We may have privatization of profits, but way too many losses are publicized. We left capitalism behind a long time ago. Hopefully one day we can make it back to it.
