Student Loan News – March 22, 2013

Here are the best articles from around the web this week talking about student loans…

For the week ending Friday March 22, 2013

Student Loan News:

1. Study the Details to Ace Student Loan Forgiveness:

Now is nail-biting season for high school seniors as they wait for acceptance letters from colleges.

And, since most kids aren't budding Nobel Prize or Heisman Trophy winners, now is also a stressful time for parents as they try to figure out the best way to finance a college education that can cost more than the family home.

In most cases, covering the cost of college means cobbling together current income, savings and various types of loans like a home equity line of credit, loans made directly to students and parental loans. More Details:

http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2013/03/18/study-details-to-ace-student-loan-forgiveness/

2. Universities suing graduates over unpaid student loans:

Americans owe roughly $1 trillion in student loans. Part of the unpaid debt is on federal Perkins loans offered to students on the basis of need. Now several leading universities are suing their former students to get some of that money back.

Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, and George Washington University all have sued graduates over failure to pay, according to court records. Penn filed two dozen cases last year alone, a 35 percent jump over the previous year.

College of the Ozarks, a private, four-year Missouri college, is so concerned about the mounting debt of college graduates in the United States that it no longer will accept students who take out loans, Reuters reports. Get more: http://lifeinc.today.com/_news/2013/03/19/17372483-universities-suing-graduates-over-unpaid-student-loans

Loan News From Bank

3. Student loans create debt trap that must be fixed:

As the Legislature mulls a misguided proposal to issue bonds to help expand the Oregon Opportunity Grant program, this much is beyond debate: Students are incurring too much debt.

Americans owe about $1 trillion on student loans, accounting for 8.5 percent of all consumer debt. Josh Lehner, an economist with the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis, recently posted a thorough analysis of that debt through an Oregon lens. It should be required reading for policymakers considering how to ease the student debt burden — and for those who plan to borrow money to pay for school. Visit: http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2013/03/student_loans_create_debt_trap.html

Student Loan Blog Posts:

1. Student Loans on the Market:

It may seem like sacrilege to subject the “good debt” of federal student loans to the ups and downs of market forces, but lawmakers eventually will have no choice. It's probably not a bad idea anyway.

The House Education and the Workforce Committee kicked off what is likely to be a long conversation about the costs of college last week at a hearing where Chairman John Kline, R-Minn., proposed moving to a market-based system for student loans. Interest rates for new student loans would fluctuate from year to year under that scenario. “Such a system was previously in place from 1992 through 2005. Had it remained, interest rates on student loans could be less than 3 percent today,” he said. Click here: http://education.nationaljournal.com/2013/03/student-loans-on-the-market.php

2. Is Student Loan Debt Forgiveness A Good Idea?

The short answer, despite the pleadings of an over-stuffed body of ex-students facing inexorable debt loads, is “no”. However, as Professor Daniel Lin notes in this brief clip, debt forgiveness does not resolve the underlying causes of rising student debt, and therefore cannot prevent future debt problems. Instead of debt forgiveness, he suggests making student loans like other types of loans: dischargeable in bankruptcy. This places the burden on lenders to ensure that students are not taking on more debt than they can handle. Discover more: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-15/student-loan-debt-forgiveness-good-idea

3. 3 Little-Known Facts About Student Loan Debt:

In June of 2010, student loan debt made headlines when it surpassed credit card debt here in the U.S. Since then, outstanding student loan debt has surpassed the $1 trillion mark — making it the single largest form of household consumer debt outside of home loans.

There’s no question that student loan debt continues to be a growing concern — not only for students and graduates, but for parents, grandparents and policymakers alike.

With so much media attention on the state of student loan debt, public awareness of the issue has grown substantially. Learn more: http://www.mint.com/blog/credit/3-little-known-facts-about-student-loan-debt-0313/