President Barack Obama’s reform on student loans looks great on paper, but then again most public policies do.
Obama announced his new “Pay as You Earn” plan before a crowd of college students in Denver last week.
The President is putting forward an initiative to cap monthly student loan payments at 10 percent of their income, with the remainder forgiven after 20 years.
On average, the federal government shells out more than $100 billion in financial aid annually.
Seniors Nathan Sakony and Ryan McCutcheon said their estimated student loan debt would be $30,000 and $35,000, respectively.
Assuming they get jobs making $30,000 annually, never get married and never have kids, they’ll pay more than $40,000 under the new plan in the next 20 years. This also assumes that they make no more than $30,000 annually.
Should they exceed that salary, a greater portion of it will go toward their loan.
Unfortunately, students who get a $30,000 job, which is $20,000 less than the average American salary, aren’t the burden. It’s graduates who can’t find a job or are underemployed who will fail to pay off their debt in full.
And the new legislation will ensure that no matter how little we make (the less the better), the federal government will be there to pick up the check.
The national debt is approaching $15 trillion. It’s out of control because of policies that forgive bad decisions.
We’re told to be responsible and accountable, then given a 20-year forgiveness package, wrapped in time for Christmas and endorsed by Obama.
What he’s proposing is a 20-year time bomb.
When our kids attend college, the bomb will be prime to explode as taxpayers pick up the tab on all of the uncollected student loan debt, the debt that Obama forgave and passed along to the public.
Thanks, but we’d rather have a lump of coal.
