Obama Announces Help for Student Loan Borrowers

President Barack Obama recalled his struggles with student loan debt as he unveiled a plan Wednesday that could give millions of young people some relief on their payments. Speaking at the University of Colorado Denver, Obama said that he and his wife, Michelle, together owed more than $120,000 in law school debt that took nearly a decade to pay off. He said that sometimes he'd have to make monthly payments to multiple lenders, and the debt meant they were not only paying for their own degrees but saving for their daughters' college funds simultaneously.

"I've been in your shoes. We did not come from a wealthy family," Obama said to cheers. Obama said it's never been more important to get a college education, but it's also never been more expensive. Obama said his plan will help not just individuals, but the nation, because graduates will have more money to spend on things like buying homes. "Our economy needs it right now and your future could use a boost right now," Obama said.

Obama's plan will accelerate a measure passed by Congress that reduces the maximum required payment on student loans from 15 percent of discretionary income annually to 10 percent. He will put it into effect in 2012, instead of 2014. In addition, the White House says the remaining debt would be forgiven after 20 years, instead of 25. About 1.6 million borrowers could be affected. He will also allow borrowers who have a loan from the Federal Family Education Loan Program and a direct loan from the government to consolidate them into one. The consolidated loan would carry an interest rate of up to a half percentage point less than before. This could affect 5.8 million borrowers.

Student loans are the No. 2 source of household debt. The president's announcement came on the same day as a new report on tuition costs from the College Board. It showed that average in-state tuition and fees at four-year public colleges rose $631 this fall, or 8.3 percent, compared with a year ago. Nationally, the cost of a full credit load has passed $8,000, an all-time high.

Student loan debt is a common concern voiced by Occupy Wall Street protesters. Obama's plan could help him shore up re-election support among young voters, an important voting bloc in his 2008 election. But, it might not ease all their fears. Anna Van Pelt, 24, a graduate student in public health at the University of Colorado Denver who attended the speech, estimates she'll graduate with $40,000 in loans. She called Obama's plan a "really big deal" for her, but said she still worries about how she'll make the payments. "By the time I graduate, my interest rate is going to be astronomical, especially when you don't have a job," Van Pelt said. "So it's not just paying the loans back. It's paying the loans back without a job." The White House said the changes will carry no additional costs to taxpayers.

Last year, Congress passed a law that lowered the repayment cap and moved student loans to direct lending by eliminating banks as the middlemen. Before that, borrowers could get loans directly from the government or from the Federal Family Education Loan Program; the latter were issued by private lenders but basically insured by the government. The law was passed along with the health care overhaul with the anticipation that it could save about $60 billion over a decade.

The change in the law was opposed by many Republicans. At a hearing Tuesday, Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., who chairs a subcommittee with oversight over higher education, said it had resulted in poorer customer service for borrowers. And Senate Republicans issued a news release with a compilation of headlines that showed thousands of workers in student lending, including those from Sallie Mae Inc., had been laid off because of the change.

Today, there are 23 million borrowers with $490 billion in loans under the Federal Family Education Loan Program. Last year, the Education Department made $102.2 billion in direct loans to 11.5 million recipients.
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Hefling reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Kristen Wyatt contributed to this report.

Partnering with Public Schools and the Community

Posted by Dr. Charlene Dukes on September 29, 2011 at 06:15 PM EDT

Ed. Note: Champions of Change is a weekly initiative to highlight Americans who are making an impact in their communities and helping our country rise to meet the many challenges of the 21st century.

Charlene Dukes

Community colleges across the nation have catapulted into the limelight as a major sector of the higher education landscape. We share a common mission of access and a commitment to student success and completion. We, at Prince George’s Community College, are honored to have been chosen as a ‘Champion of Change’ because of our focus on our mission - to transform the lives of the more than 40,000 diverse students whom we serve.

We open our doors to thousands of students and recently have been acknowledged for our commitment to providing students with a quality education by welcoming 100 rising ninth graders to the Academy of Health Sciences at Prince George’s Community College, the first middle college high school in the state of Maryland. These students, who will be joined each year by another class of ninth graders in the creation of a full high school program of grades 9-12, will realize their dreams and graduate with a high school diploma and an associate’s degree simultaneously; the Class of 2015 will be the first!.

Through a strong partnership with the Prince George’s County Public Schools, the Academy of Health Sciences at Prince George’s Community College was born and unveiled earlier this year. Its opening is evidence that despite the economic challenges of today, our public school and college leaders are facilitating learning in transformational ways for tomorrow’s leaders as one solution to global competitiveness in the decades ahead.

There is another idea central to the creation of the Academy of Health Sciences at Prince George’s Community College – and that is if we believe in seamless learning and a true Pre-K through 20 system of providing access to support an educated citizenry with degrees and credentials, then institutions of learning can no longer exist in a vacuum in our society. We need students to be able to dream beyond the boundaries of their schools, beyond the limits of their neighborhoods, and beyond the shores of this country. They must view themselves and their learning as part of a much larger world. We live in an age of interconnectedness, where technology and the global village allows access to information at a rate faster than any time in human history. We must give students the tools to critically analyze that information, make judgments, draw conclusions and join the debate as informed and impassioned citizens of this country and our world. Our students in the Academy are understanding that learning is not limited by the walls of the school or the hours of the school day, but rather that it is a lifelong, 24/7/365 endeavor.

Prince George’s Community College is dedicated to education and committed to student success and completion. The college’s strategic plan is focused on increasing graduation rates in a rigorous, standards-based environment through a formal pledge of completion that reflects national and statewide efforts to boost the number of graduates and meet the goals issued by President Obama and his administration. To that end, the college has embarked on a completion agenda, known as Envision Success, which is geared toward ensuring students are successful and that they receive degrees, certificates, and certifications as part of their educational objectives.

A great example of how we prepare students to become leaders is evident in our national recognitions. Prince George’s Community College has been named a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Two-year Education by the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security for academic years 2010 through 2015, and Community College Week recently named Prince George’s Community College one of the 50 fastest-growing public two-year colleges in the nation.

The college's real strength rests in its people – faculty, staff, and administrators who dedicate themselves daily to responding to students’ intellectual and professional needs. All of what is accomplished here would not be possible without them. They are the real Champions!

Dr. Charlene M. Dukes is the eighth president, and first female president, of Prince George’s Community College and has more than thirty years of progressive leadership experience and administrative responsibility in higher education.

Summer Learning Loss Can Be Prevented

Dr. Michael A. Robinson

I just reviewed data on the percentage of fourth grade students passing their 2008-2009 state reading exams, according to NBC’s Education Nation website. Click here to see the Maryland data for yourself. Below are a few Maryland public school systems and their percentages of fourth grade students passing state reading:

Anne Arundel County (91%)
Baltimore City (78%)
Baltimore County (87%)
Calvert County (94%)
Howard County (93%)
Montgomery County (91%)
Prince George's County (77%)

As engaged parents, we have to address the low percentage of students performing well in the classroom and on state exams. This is especially important during the summer when academically centered activities give way to summer fun and frolic.

Former CEO for the National Summer Learning Association Ron Fairchild stated that 65% of the achievement gap can be attributed to summer learning loss. If this is true, we as parents cannot sit idly by and watch all the gains our children have made during the previous school year fall back. In a report released by the National Summer Learning Association, summer learning loss has been linked to low academic achievement and extremely high dropout rates.

The research brief cites the work of Dr. Karl Alexander and his colleagues which suggested that students from low economic backgrounds tend to experience a greater degree of academic drops in skills during the summer. Their research also discovered that students from economic disadvantaged backgrounds typically enter the school year at a lower level than typically middle class students, however, the researchers’ suggested that by the end of the year students from the low income families have progressed at or about an equal rate of those from a more affluent economic background. According the writers, their struggles really pick up during the summer when they experience the summer slide. The summer slide was not a phenomenon their more well off peers encountered.

Dr. Alexander when asked to explain why income levels impacted summer learning and more specifically why higher income students performed better upon return from summer breaks, he posited there were “some definite differences (Alexander, 2010). He further explained,

I don’t want to break it down into a checklist, but some differences seemed relevant. For example, better-off children were more likely to go to the library over the summertime and take books home. They were more likely to engage in a variety of enrichment experiences such as attending museums, concerts and field trips. They were more likely to take out-of-town vacations, be involved in organized sports activities, or take lessons, such as swimming or gymnastics lessons. Overall, they had a more expansive realm of experiences.

Many of the activities outlined by Dr. Alexander could be out of the reach of lower income families and to an extent a growing number of middle class families. Thus families have to create alternative learning opportunities to for their children. Scholars and school administrators agree there are ways this can be accomplished.

Parent Talk Explores the Controversial Parent Trigger Law with Gwen Samuel, Founder and President of the State of Black CT Alliance.

Parent Talk discusses the controversial Parent Trigger law which was recently exercised by parents in Compton, California with the Founder and President of the State of Black CT Alliance, Ms. Gwen Samuel.


BIO

Ms. Samuel is a Parent, Founder and President of the State of Black CT Alliance, an organization which advocates for equity and access to high quality socioeconomic and educational opportunities for communities of color and vulnerable populations. Ms. Samuel is also the founder of the Meriden Kids Walk Safe Coalition (MKWS) – a Safe Routes to School Initiative.

A graduate of Springfield College, with a Bachelor of Science degree in Human Services, Ms. Samuel works tirelessly to promote effective and sustainable practices that foster the academic and social development of our children while seeking to strengthen our families and communities. She firmly strives to ensure that “each and every child has access to the right of a high quality education and equitable access to opportunity, and that we must work effectively until neither race nor socio-economic status is a predictor of student success.”

In recognition of her work, in March of 2010, in a national Parenting Magazine contest, Ms. Samuel was one of 51 moms across the country that were selected to represent their state at the inaugural Mom Congress on Education and Learning Conference at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

In September of 2010, Ms. Samuel was selected to sit on an educational panel at the NBC Universal Education Nation Summit in New York.

She firmly believes that when parents, children and community know more and better they do more and they do better.

Show Date: January 9, 2011
Show Time: 8:30pm-9:00pm
Call In Number: 1 (914) 803-4591
Website: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/educationaljournal