college debt

First of all, Mike and I have decided that our "quick hit" or "daily digest" pieces are now going to be called "Around the Tubes". I'll try and tag the older digest pieces when I find them, but for now, here's what I've been looking at in the series of tubes this morning:

• Kid Oakland has a really nice post up at both MyDD and Daily Kos that uses a conversation with a young elected official and a young activist that helped get him elected to talk about the Millennial Generation. There's also a few really good conversations in the DKos comments. Though Kid Oakland isn't really much of a kid, he consistently writes great pieces on both Millennials and politics in general, so I've placed his blog on the blogroll.
• Forex News takes a look at the practice of Redlining student loans that I pointed to the other day. The article gets someone from the loan industry to say in plain language what they are doing, and why:
  

  He said default rates are used along with other data about a school, including anticipated income after graduation and dropout rates, to help set rates that protect the interests of the lender.

  Dean used the example of a student attending an Ivy League college as opposed to another at a small trade school.

  The industry would view the Ivy League student as clearly "on the path to success," while the other student presents greater risk, he said.

  "Should both of those students get the same rate?" Dean asked.

  No, you're right, we subsidize student loans in this nation to benefit mainly the upper class and the upwardly mobile, which is how it should be. Those plebes should stick to playing video games, or whatever it is those poor fools do, and leave the learning to those who can really use it!

• For some strange reason that Chris Dodd guy (you know, the one whose running for President) wants to do something about the cost and efficiency of student loans. This is from a press release he put out last week:
  

  "As the average student leaves a four-year institution with $20,000 in debt, it is essential that we do all we can to ensure that students are securing their loans on the best terms possible," said Dodd Campaign Spokesperson Christy Setzer. "By requiring banks to compete for the right to make or own government-guaranteed student loans, students can be assured they are get the best rates on loans while the program provides significant savings to taxpayers as government subsidies are driven down by market competition."

  Dodd, who will be unveiling details of his plan in the coming weeks, announced that under his plan the government would force student lenders who participate in the Federal Family Education Loan program to compete for the right to make or own federal student loans through a government-run auction. As a result, an additional $20 billion will be available to be directed back to student aid and other federal education programs.

  Last week Dodd announced he would introduce legislation that would require private lenders to provide more accurate and timely information to customers about interest rates, terms and conditions of their loans in order to ensure students better understand their debts and obligations.

  Dodd has also put forward a National Service Plan, which includes a video from a live video chat he did. I guess Senator Dodd hasn't gotten the memo that young people don't vote, and they really should be ignored.

  Senator Dodd will officially announce his National Service Plan via a live video feed on Saturday at 5pm.

• Meanwhile, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions approved a package of legislation to renew the Higher Education Act that would basically transfer about $18-billion dollars of profit from the college loan industry to students. At least that's theoretically what it would do, though I still think direct loans from the government would be a much better use of our resources.
• TechPresident sends a memo to the non-Obama campaigns: There's This Thing Called "Facebook". Apparently that little John Edwards FaceBook app that Mike higlighted the other day was actually created by techPresident's Fred Stutzman, who is going to open source the app for any campaign to use and abuse.
• Apparently Michael Moore's new movie Sicko paints a pretty unflattering picture of Democratic front runner Hillary Clinton, who apparently gets the most money from the health care industry of any Senator, now that Rick Santorum has been sent packing. I know those 30 second ads are expensive, but are you fucking kidding me? Can we get a real leader for President, please?
• Barack Obama still doesn't get "blogging" or the "netroots". Uh, Barack, you have a blog. Does that make you a blogger? Next.
• But, some people still would love to see a Gore-Obama ticket (From Young Turks via Tennessee Guerrilla Women.
  
  I personally would prefer a Gore-Dodd ticket, but it would be nice to get all the cultists Obamiacs on Gore's side, so there's that.

And for those of you who don't remember the brilliant, rambling, incoherent rant in a bottle that is Senetor Ted "grumpy grandpa" Stevens (R-Alaska and R for Retarded) here's grumpy grandpa's explanation for why we should charge companies a fee to use the interwebs.

He's right, the internet is not a truck you can dump your stuff into. The quote about his staff sending him internets that take all night to arrive is so funny, I would swear it was a Jon Stewart skit. It's sad when our elected officials provide more hilarious caricatures of stupid and inept politicians than our best comedians can ever hope to.

No sooner had I put together my last post, when I saw a new group on facebook being pushed by my pal Matt Browner-Hamlin, who is currently working for Chris Dodd, that aims to improve the loans offered to college students. The group is called Student Loan Transparency Now! and it's set up to highlight a bill that Dodd recently introduced into the banking committee. From Dodd's campaign blog:

Recently Senator Dodd introduced the Private Student Loan Transparency and Accountability Act. The Dodd legislation extends new protections to all private student loans in order to improve transparency, prevent unfair and deceptive private lending practices and eliminate conflicts of interest. CNNMoney.com says "Student lenders would have to better disclose their rates and would be banned from discriminatory underwriting practices under legislation introduced Friday by U.S. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, D-Conn" Accounting Web has more on what the bill does, as well as complimentary efforts being done by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

Check out Dodd's Senate sight for more info on the bill. This San Francisco Chronical article is a good place to start for background on this important issue.

Please help spread the word on the Private Student Loan Transparency and Accountability Act! It's not often that politicians in DC pay attention to the needs of young people, and we really need to try and reward politicians that do, with attention, volunteering, donations, etc. If more pols would push legislation like this I'm guessing it wouldn't be nearly as hard to attract young people to the polls on election day.

BTW, if you haven't read it already, please check out the Nation article about Matt's jump to the Dodd campaign. Matt's convinced me: at the moment, if Al Gore doesn't run, Chris Dodd has my vote. Only a few million more voters to go!

Various items that I've noticed but don't have time to dig into:

Reports from Texas indicate that voter registration is way up. Some are even predicting a big youth turnout due to the governor's race (which Josh has blogged here.)

A number of groups are looking to make college education costs a big issue in the upcoming election (a little late for that, no?). I don't think college education costs are going to be the factor that these groups want in '06, but I do think that this issue could be a big player in the primaries, where presidential contenders will need to gather the support of the increasingly important youth vote.

Garance Franke-Ruta wrote a bit about this on Tapped. Apparently, students in Iowa and New Hampshire (pdf) have the greatest debt burdens in America among college grads - making this a juicy primary issue. We'll see which presidential contenders can make hay out of it in '07 and '08.

Little Joey Biden may be the first candidate to hop on that bandwagon. Iowa Politics is reporting that his PAC just donated $3000 to the Iowa College Democrats to do GOTV work this cycle.

Finally, an initiative to legalize marijuana looks like its been taking tips from the New Politics Institute. Groups supporting the measure have been reaching out to students through social networking sites and targeted radio buys. It will be interesting to see how much support they garner.