Free Republic

Forget this last post, the Federal Reserve has stepped in and settled the debate that was brewing between the White House & Congress. Basically, the student loan companies need someone to buy some loans so they can have enough reserve cash to offer more loans in the future. Due to high default rates, high inflation rates, and overall low student loan return rates, no investors are showing up for the normal bond auctions. Part of this, of course, is due to an over-correction by Congress during the financial boom period of 2004 to 2006. By the time legislation had passed...

Fair Game The Insiders Are Selling, but Why? By GRETCHEN MORGENSON TROUBLES in the subprime mortgage arena are seeping into other markets, like credit cards, auto loans and college debt issued to people with risky profiles. So it isn’t surprising that stocks of for-profit education companies — which are heavily reliant on students’ access to easy money — have fallen in recent months. But the Apollo Group, which operates the University of Phoenix, the College for Financial Planning and other accredited degree programs, is one for-profit education company with a relatively resilient share price. Competitors like the Career Education Corporation...

I didn't immediately realize, as I made my way through the enrollment lines at college, how much it was going to cost me to live in Pasadena. My college had no dormitories so all students had to find off campus housing and transportation to get to get to school. Tuition averaged $11,000.00 per semester and the school ran 3 continuous semesters per year. In a sincere effort to fund my education, I turned to my college financial aid office, where advisors never even suggested federal funding or grants etc. . They simply directed me to private loan companies, who were...

House Democrats were extolling their student loan bill for opening college to Americans with moderate incomes on Wednesday when Rep. Tom Price, a second-term Republican from Georgia, took the floor. "If only this bill did what they say," Price declared. His admonition constituted more than the usual hyperbole of congressional debate. The bill, passed by an overwhelming, bipartisan vote, was touted as reducing the interest on federally subsidized student loans, from the present 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent. Actually, it gradually reaches the 3.4 percent level on July 1, 2011. A student taking out a loan on July 1 of...

It’s official. We are a nation of illiterates, with college degrees. “As if this weren’t enough, there are also disturbing signs that many students who do earn degrees have not actually mastered the reading, writing and thinking skills we expect of college graduates,” the U. S. Commission on the future of higher education found. “Over the past decade, literacy among college graduates has actually declined.” “Unacceptable numbers of college graduates enter the workforce without the skills employers say they need in an economy where, as the truism holds correctly, knowledge matters more than ever.” The commission members, who serve without...

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Wednesday that the government can seize a person’s Social Security benefits to pay old student loans. Retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote the decision that went against a disabled man, James Lockhart, who had sued claiming he needed all of his $874 monthly check to pay for food and medication. Lockhart, 67, a former postal worker who now lives in public housing in Seattle, has heart disease, diabetes and other health problems. He has about $77,000 in student loan debt....