Economics 101

It's back to school season, and with millions of students hitting the books and families pulling out the checkbooks, the rising cost of college is on everyone's mind. The average tuition at a four-year, private college topped 30,000 dollars for the 2006-2007 academic year, and in order to stay in school, students are being forced to borrow more than ever. The average American student today graduates with 20,000 dollars in debt, according to the United States Student Association, a student advocacy group.

Last week, Congress passed the College Cost Reduction and Access Act, a reform of the federal college lending program that Congressional Democrats are touting as a solid follow through on their campaign promises of 2006. The new legislation increases Pell Grants--direct grants to students from the government--and finances the increase by cutting subsidies to private lenders, stated goals of the Democrats' "6 in ‘06" agenda proposed last fall. Gabriel Pendas, president of the USSA, called the measure "a good first step," but stressed there was still much more the government could do. Many Democratic politicians and education advocates want a complete elimination of student-lender subsidies. The industry, they say, is plagued by the crunch affecting the entire credit market, which leads to higher rates for student borrowers, and an August Government Accountability Office report faulted the Department of Education for failing to oversee improper relationships between lenders and several leading universities.

And in fact, the leading Democratic presidential candidates--Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama--all go further than Congress in their potential fixes for the federal program. Obama calls for full transparency of student lenders and a complete elimination of federal subsidies for private lenders; Clinton wants greater increases in Pell grants and a Student Borrower's Bill of Rights; and Edwards offers perhaps the most comprehensive plan, with his "College for Everyone" proposal, which would pay for a year of public college for students willing to work a part time job, as well as eliminate subsidies to private lenders.

So can the candidates draw student votes with these promises? A survey conducted in May and June of 2007 by Democracy Corps, a Washington-based thinktank and research center, found youth voters (ages 18-29) overwhelmingly favoring Democratic candidates in generic match-ups for Congressional and Presidential races. Surprisingly, economic issues, including the rising cost of education and student debts, topped the Iraq War by 7 percentage points as the top priorities youth feel candidates should address. But whether or not it's enough to drive this notoriously apolitical demographic to the polls remains to be seen.

Comments (30)

1. Sheeit! I wish something could be done about my existing student loans!

   Posted by MATTMAN at 09/20/2007 @ 3:43pm

2. Three things...

   1. Perfectly happy to see the interest rate on student loans dropped. Frankly, it could go really low and I'd have no problem with.

   2. On the other hand, this (Ms Currier's) line of thinking, as it has with Ms vanden Heuvel, quickly DEGENERATES into a "free college for all" proposal...which is a no-go for me.

   And Edwards is offering "free everything" to try to get to the Left of Hillary and get some traction. If he does get the nomination, watch how quickly such things get "put on the back burner" when the costs are tallied.

   3. Please, please, please....give up this "youth vote" stuff. "The kids" didn't get McGovern elected...they're not going to cause a "new wave of progressivism"....they never have.

   Posted by Mask at 09/20/2007 @ 3:46pm

3. 3. Please, please, please....give up this "youth vote" stuff. "The kids" didn't get McGovern elected...they're not going to cause a "new wave of progressivism"....they never have.

   Posted by MASK 09/20/2007 @ 3:46pm

   mask, i usually avoid your cynicism, but i think your right on this one.

   if just 45% of voters vote, it's hard to imagine a bunch of 18-25 years olds leaving the mall to go vote.

   obviously not everyone. but the fact that economic issues are 7% more important to college folk tells me that their parent's selfishness has rubbed off on them exponentially.

   Posted by frosty zoom at 09/20/2007 @ 3:55pm

4. i dont want my tax dollars going to support overpriced private universities to churn out a whole new crop of russian lit phd's...

   sorry, i like the russian lit, the aboriginie women's studies and all, and do see a place for them, but...

   dont want my tax money going to bass-ackwards overpriced private universities...

   Posted by ibbleblibble at 09/20/2007 @ 4:02pm

5. especially when some very progressive private companies are indeed revoutionizing higher education at an affordable price...

   see? i'm not a socialist!

   Posted by ibbleblibble at 09/20/2007 @ 4:03pm

6. time to gloat.

   full time tuition for my luvly wife (4-year biology major):

   $5,000 per year. another $1,000 for books.

   wait there's more. up to $5,000 in tuition is fully tax-deductible. plus there's a $200 per month deduction for living expenses.

   there more i see, the more i think we should invade* y'all.

   *yep. i am a devout neo-canservative. neo-can.

   this invasion will be easy to justify. you've got PLENTY of wmd's. you torture prisoners. you invade other countries. you even have some oil left.

   look out, here we come!

   Posted by frosty zoom at 09/20/2007 @ 4:04pm

7. Mask, Frosty, I'm not sure the cynicism is warranted here! Because of the war there has been a spike in youth activism, at least from what I've seen. I was at CSULA in 03 when the war was starting and youth activism was rampant. At rallies and protests in Santa Monica and Hollywood, the youth turnout was huge. Then I moved up to Spokane and I see kids protesting the war, and police brutality (following an incident of cops beating up war protesters). It's not exactly like the 60's, or at least the footage I've seen, but at least from what I've witnessed, GWB has inadvertantly inspired those damn kids to pay attention to the world. I don't have the figures from any polls. Maybe someone will enlighten me with them as I have a job to get back to!

   Posted by MATTMAN at 09/20/2007 @ 4:06pm

8. Posted by MATTMAN 09/20/2007 @ 4:06pm

   maybe taserdude will wake up even more!

   Posted by frosty zoom at 09/20/2007 @ 4:12pm

9. see? i'm not a socialist!----Posted by IBBLEBLIBBLE 09/20/2007 @ 4:03pm

   Okay, IBB...you may have just given me my definition difference between the "progressives" and the socialists. "Progressives" don't support "free college".

   Thanks!

   Posted by Mask at 09/20/2007 @ 4:29pm

10. Posted by MATTMAN 09/20/2007 @ 4:06pm

    MATT, I appreciate your anecdotal, subjective view...but the numbers don't bear it out. You don't see the crowds at the original anti-war protests dominated by young people, mostly it's older folks, the usual activists, and some oldsters trying to re-live their youth.

    Every couple election cycles some "organizer" or pundit (like PETER ROTHBERG, who's a great guy, but off base on this) claims that "the kids have stopped being apathetic, they'll really turn things around now and sweep in a bunch of progressives"....

    and it never pans out. Even in '06 (last claimed "rise of the youth vote"), the Dems who won were mostly Blue Dogs and were riding a tide of middle-aged and elder dissatisfaction...not "the kids".

    I honestly think that if the 26th Amendment had never been passed....nothing would have changed in who got elected and who didn't!

    Posted by Mask at 09/20/2007 @ 4:33pm

11. Posted by MASK 09/20/2007 @ 4:29pm | ignore this person

    actually i'm a supporter of cheapass college sans grade inflation...gotta pulse? sure, take a shot at it, at the worst blow a semester or two of tuition and then move on to somethimg else.

    but wholesale funding of every moron whose parents think that a 4 year degree in pan asiatic sports philosophy is a ticket to the big time...

    no.

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 09/20/2007 @ 4:59pm

12. pan asiatic sports philosophy

    BY IBBS

    hey, no making fun of my major!

    Posted by frosty zoom at 09/20/2007 @ 5:02pm

13. Posted by FROSTY ZOOM 09/20/2007 @ 5:02pm

    "i'm working on a double major in cult film theology and non-western historical revisionism at snottiass u. i'm having trouble covering the tuition. i plan to be in debt the rest of my life unless somebody gives a bunch of their taxpayer money to assure i get my eduvation. after college? a phd, of course!"

    its ok frosty, you canadians got it all anyway...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 09/20/2007 @ 5:14pm

14. has anybody sat through a godawful graduation ceremony at a typical university lately? notice the dearth of non asiatic exchange students graduating from the "hard stuff" disciplines we really really need?

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 09/20/2007 @ 5:18pm

15. engineers...doctors...chemists...physicists...

    hard stuff...(plenty of lawyers, though)

    the irritating thing is that it should (and at some time in the golden, nostalgized past was) all be "hard stuff". its just that the humanities and to a slightly lesser extent, business schools, became so loaded down with draft dodging mediocrity during vietnam, that they got "democratized" (grade inflated). furthermore, the naive notions of depression era folks that if everyone had a bachelors degree everyone would be happy and rich(dumbing down and lowering of standards in higher education in order to accomodate such delusions) have not helped either...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 09/20/2007 @ 5:29pm

16. "And Edwards is offering "free everything" to try to get to the Left of Hillary and get some traction. If he does get the nomination,..."

    Edwards is running? For what?

    Posted by john maasch at 09/20/2007 @ 5:39pm

17. Edwards is running? For what?

    Posted by JOHN MAASCH

    Alzheimers is a bitch, huh, old man?

    Posted by mtspence05 at 09/20/2007 @ 5:51pm

18. Posted by ZERO 09/20/2007 @ 5:32pm | ignore this person

    in costa rica the cheapass public university where all that was needed to give it a try was a pulse actually had a better acadeMic rep (it was close to a true meritocracy) than the private universities where DADDY'S BIG MONEY DONATIONS COULD RESULT IN A TRUE MUSHMOUTHED MORON'S SOMEHOW ENDING UP WITH AN MBA!

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 09/20/2007 @ 5:55pm

19. everybody needs a bachelors degree to "make it".

    ok, everybody got a bachelors degree. uh oh...now that everybody got a bachelors degree...

    everybody need a master's degree...

    ok, everybody got a masters degree. uh oh...now that everybody got a phd...

    uh oh...

    and getting dumbed down the whole time!!!

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 09/20/2007 @ 6:00pm

20. or something like that...har har...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 09/20/2007 @ 6:01pm

21. "everybody needs a bachelors degree to "make it". "

    Then that explains EMPTYS failures...

    Posted by john maasch at 09/20/2007 @ 6:35pm

22. Posted by JOHN MAASCH 09/20/2007 @ 6:35pm

    how u doin, maasch?

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 09/20/2007 @ 6:42pm

23. Edwards is running? For what?

    Posted by JOHN MAASCH 09/20/2007 @ 5:39pm

    Yeah....at this point, he's running for "third place" in the South Carolina primary!

    Posted by Mask at 09/20/2007 @ 8:23pm

24. Well, I've got a couple of degrees, one of them even kinda hard (hint: ends in -ing), and I can't explain why oil has set new records each day this week! Normally, I'd be selling down more of my energy stocks....but something is telling me to hold off....unease!

    Topped $84/barrel and settled at $83.32.....Local paper said today, for the first time since the `80s', more petroleum engineers will be graduating from UTexas and Texas A&M (in 2008)!

    Posted by Happy at 09/20/2007 @ 8:40pm

25. Happy: oil looks good for the future, as the dollar is going to sink if it isn't being deliberately pushed down. For constant supply and demand, oil prices go up as the dollar goes down. Of course, if you are banking in dollars, the steadily devaluing currency, then it is zero gain for you.

    Posted by ZERO 09/20/2007 @ 9:15pm

    Oil's rocket ride up of this past few weeks (15 to 20%) ain't entirely due to dollar slide (vs. the Euro & Frosty dollar) .....something is up...possibly certain funds are `cornering' the market and will dump soon or more ominously, there are GEO fears....?related? to AhmaDineInYourJeans `Final Answer' in October!

    Got some European and global funds as part of my Hedge for dollar declines! IMO, (slow) dollar decline is GOOD for our trade situation :-)))!

    Posted by Happy at 09/20/2007 @ 10:44pm

26. So down with Bushonomics? Well, I remember good old days in the late 1990s when I got Canadian $1.50 for just one US$. Read this.

    ----------

    Canadian Dollar Trades Equal to U.S. for First Time Since 1976 By Haris Anwar and Theophilos Argitis Sept. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Canada's dollar traded equal to the U.S. currency for the first time in three decades, capping a five-year run on the back of booming demand for the nation's commodities.

    The Canadian dollar rose as high as $1.0008, before retreating to 99.87 U.S. cents at 4:16 p.m. in New York. It has soared 62 percent from a record low of 61.76 U.S. cents in 2002. The U.S. dollar fell as low as 99.93 Canadian cents today. The Canadian currency last closed above $1 on Nov. 25, 1976, when Pierre Trudeau was Canada's prime minister.

    Posted by Helen DAO at 09/20/2007 @ 11:05pm

27. ZERO:

    Exactly. Hence my staunch criticism of the Clinton era. It was not the happy time that many liberals wish to remember (falsely). Were times much better than now? Sure. But that doesn't mean they were good... just good by comparison. I sometimes thing hell would be a better place. KIDDING!

    Posted by jorcheim at 09/21/2007 @ 12:01am

28. its ok frosty, you canadians got it all anyway...

    Posted by IBBLEBLIBBLE 09/20/2007 @ 5:14pm

    no actually we're working very hard. i hope i didn't sound arrogant before. just teasing.

    Posted by frosty zoom at 09/21/2007 @ 12:46am

29. Posted by IBBLEBLIBBLE 09/20/2007 @ 5:29pm

    my nephew, who never ever speaks, [ex. mnmnbmbmm fjbj mbnbn] just recieved a full scholarship (i have no idea from whom) to study PHILOSTOPHY

    couldn't be prouder.

    Posted by frosty zoom at 09/21/2007 @ 12:48am

30. (hint: ends in -ing),

    By HAPPY

    ¿annoy?-ing

    :+}

    Posted by frosty zoom at 09/21/2007 @ 12:51am