The entire debate is essentially focused on whether our government, the government of the people, for the people, is practicing fiscal responsibility. The answer is, without question, NO.

Am I stating that it is Republican or Democrat caused problem? NO. It is a Republican AND Democrat caused problem. We as American citizens have lost our desire to hold our representatives accountable for their actions and choices. We have the power of the vote. Yet so many of us desire to have free hand-outs while giving away our personal freedoms and choices.

At what cost could we have our loans forgiven? How much more control of the details of our lives would our politicians gain? When would it stop?

Each of us ought to be responsible for our own actions and held accountable to the laws of our land. I am by no means perfect, but I do intend to fulfill my responsibilities until the day that I die.

We ought to vote out our current leaders and vote in a true representative body of leaders. Those who are not primarily lawyers, but for each group of citizens, whether local, state, or national, we should elect officials who are employed as the bodies they represent. For example, if a district is 90% farmers then the representatives from that district should be farmers. If the district is 50% farmers, 30% factory workers, and 20% lawyers then we should have an elected body respective to its constituents. If this were the case, we would have laws and standards which were reflective and representative of the entire population, not a small fraction thereof.

But as it stands, we should not continue to turn our country into a socialist country. We need to be inventive, creative and motivated to continue to develop new products and manufacture them, not selling licenses overseas and buying back the product at a higher cost.

It all starts in your own personal affairs. You yourself need to be fiscally responsible while holding those around you responsible as well. If you have a loan, pay it back. Do not rely on government to fix problems that you caused.

Later in life, when we are returning to school, it can be even more difficult to repay loans. So… you see these ads on the internet everywhere how “Obama Wants Moms To Return To School” as if that is going to make people want to jump up and run to school! Bull. If he so desperately wants moms/dads/the nation to return to school, he’d better open his big wallets and **fund** it for us. I will work toward paying these loans, yes, but I have no pie-in-the-sky notion that I will be able to pay it all off, unless I am able to pay large chunks at a time. And, I won’t be able to do that unless employers are willing to take an older adult as a “newbie” and take me under their wing to learn the new position for which my education will then qualify me to hold. That in itself is a dying breed–people hiring older workers except to allow them a job maybe as a WalMart greeter–and thereby shooting in the foot the notion that “returning to school” will stimulate the economy.

The student loans we will all incur from so doing will not help America’s financial growth; however, ***IF*** the government, who is so very willing to put their sticky hands in our families’ educations, will ***forgive*** most of the thousands of student loan dollars, there may be economic turnaround, for **then** people will perhaps have money to spend…ability to purchase a home rather than eake out an existence…and we can possibly see a turnaround, but even if all those criteria are met, we will not see sufficient turnaround until at least 5 and probably more like 10 years down the road.

Alexandra, I know what you mean–I could never purchase a home with the debt I now have incurred in some student loans, for my loan-to-income ratio is wayyyyy too high. There could indeed be benefit from student loan forgiveness.

I have student loans, which are being paid back. I locked in an interest rate that I thought was competative, as I was raised on Reaganomics and never say interest rates go down. Is it painful? From a fiscal standpoint, the benefits are not as immediate as scoring a $100K job right after graduation depending on the field of study or job availability. If I was just dealing with my own circumstances, things would be at least tolerable. However, don’t ever think that a divorce finalizes anything related to this subject matter.

My ex defaulted on student loans, but DOE did not try to collect for 15 years from the time he quit attending class. He has stayed intentionally under employed or unemployed for more than a decade, which leaves the loans in perpetual default. His idea of “paying” his student loans is having his IRS return garnished, termed “I make a payment once a year” the year we filed together. Any garnishment for child support arrearage will never appear because of penalities and interest on defaulted student loans. Therefore, whatever advise was given in the financial aid office or higher education classes did not phase him as he is not a fiscally responsible person.

Do I want his student loans, which are currently on more than a 20 year “pay schedule”, cancelled? Sure! Perhaps it is the only way our child will see the arrearages paid before the child is eighteen.

Do I think that he should have been allowed to take them out in the first place? Definately, NO because his mother was making all of this living and academic payments. This was just party money to him.

There needs to be more stringent rules about returning student loans to the government rather than the student if the academic expenses are paid in full from a different funding stream during the semester. You bet!

Back to giving back: How many schools could use afterschool volunteers to run art, music and sports programs? I know alot, I help at two, year round. How many non-profits need legal help? Administrative help? Websites to be put up and maintained, documents to be preserved. I think this would be a good initiative to bring back a sense of community that we have all lost.

Yes America is about the boot-strap lifting, but the last time I checked, when that phrase was coined there was family and community to catch you and help, not provide for you, if you stumbled.

BS! If my student loan debt (70K original from undergrad and grad school, 35K in INTEREST ADDED OVERNIGHT WHEN I WENT INTO DEFAULT (b/c i recieved bad information, the wrong forms, and was unemployed) was cancelled, I would put that money back into the economy, i.e. possibly buying or building a house – as it is, i can never do that, and any “disposable” income i make FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE has to go to pay these loans. And this wouldn’t just be for this month, or this year, but the next 30 years. And i might actually have the opportunity to feel like an autonomous human being again.

Unfortunately, the stimulative effect of this proposal would be minimal because the annual payments on the debt amount to less than 4% of the debt

PAYMENTS ARE ONLY 4% of the debt b/c of the way the debts are structured and because most people with substantial student loans cannot pay them back in lump sums. Quite often, my creditors call and say ” So would you like to put that (100K debt) on a credit card and finish it off today? My answer, ARE YOU ON CRACK?

Nearly 60% of federal education loans are in repayment, and of those, about a third are either delinquent or in a deferment or forbearance. So only about 40% of outstanding federal education loans are in active repayment and current.

OBVIOUSLY VERY FEW PEOPLE ARE CURRENTLY ABLE TO PAY BACK THEIR LOANS ON TIME.

In answer to those who say we should all pay back our student loans (and how many of those people crying wolf and you should pay them back actually HAVE student loans, did your parents cover everything?), I am not averse to paying a portion back, or even all, IF I WERE ABLE TO. I make less than 20K a year (and have only gone above that once, i am almost 40). So i probably did study the wrong thing – should have gone to med school, but then i’d have even more debt, and probably wouldn’t be able to pay it back either. After ten years of abject poverty in what should have been the prime of my life, my health is deteriorating. I can not work 3 jobs the way i did when i was 24 (and 28, and 32). I just can’t. I am tired of having to justify the desire for a decent quality of life just because i took out some loans to try to pay for college. If my parents had been able to pay for my college outright, i might still have the energy to be righteous about people paying back their student loans. I am tired of feeling like i have to sacrifice my health and my sanity for these loans.
If Sallie Mae can go bankrupt, (which was a big supporter of the usury of student loans), why not forgive some of the debt acquired by students? I would love to go back to school (which Obama wants us all to do), but i literally CANT b/c of my student loans. And getting a professional degree is the only way i will ever reach it to a higher income bracket. Hence, the only way i can pay off my student loans.