Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Student Loans and the Health Care Bill

My sister and brother-in-law came to visit the weekend before Easter. The topic of conversation turned to the changes in student loans. (In case you haven't heard, the Health Care bill makes the Federal Government the sole provider of student loans.) My sis and bro-in-law are on the Ramsey plan and my brother-in-law was concerned that the bill's provision that you can't pay back more than 10% of your salary a year would apply to them.

I'll start with the obvious: "What are student loans doing in a Heath Care Bill?", throw in a: "Who is the government to tell a private bank what they can and can't loan money for?", and wrap it up with a: "Must this administration into every corner of our lives?".

My thought is they know this bill is going to cause a shortage of doctors. By controlling student loans, they can offer incentives (ie other people's money) for students to study medicine. They can take this past just medicine, think Soviet-style dictation of what field a student must study in order to get to study at all. Then they can use student loans to give preferential treatment to specific groups. You're a white male? Forget it.

I'm done venting now, let's see what's going on with this thing.

The first thing we are going to see is and increase in tuition. As the government has made loans and financial aid more available to students, colleges and universities have raised their tuition to take in as much of this "free" money as possible.

The plan will limit a borrower's payment to 10% of his income. Yes, limit. This means that you cannot contribute 50%, 60% or even 100% of your income if you want to. No paying the loan off early. The government needs your interest to pay for health care.

....needs it unless you go to work for the public sector. The plan will forgive "all remaining debt after 10 years of payments for those in public service work and 20 years for all others." So they are encouraging people to work for the government. And where does the government get its money? (That is not a rhetorical question. If you answer Obama's stash, you'd be wrong.)

I foresee more classes in environmentalism, diversity studies and modern day feminism. And if you want a good education, better look at self-education.

3 comments:

  1. Both Rush Linbaugh and Glenn Beck are self educated. I guess that is why they are independent thinkers. The Universities are very scary places. My parent's next door neighbors' son was a student at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore when he commented on the works of Ayn Rand. (My father was reading Atlas Shrugged at the time) This kid said he would NEVER read Rand. My Dad asked why and the kid said because his professor told the class Rand is not good literature. Can't wait till the government decides home schooling is not good education.

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  2. ...and, if memory serves me correct, the neighbor's son is now a university professor, instructing other "minds full of mush".

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  3. Once there was a city, Birmingham, Michigan. They wanted to have higher end housing in their city, but this was not acceptable if they accepted any Federal money. So they refused the money offered to them and kept the city solvent and desirable. So close to Detroit, it thrived.

    Similar to education? Once you accept the Federal money, you must dance to their tune.

    Whatever happened to independence of thought?

    How many of us can do the Rev. Martin Luther Jr. thing: non-violent but clear communication regarding our laws and what we believe is right?

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