Hillary's College Compact SCREWS the Middle Class

[pinstikfartherin]

https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/college/

She says families will have to contribute, but many students will qualify for grants as they do now.

Students will do their part by contributing their earnings from working 10 hours a week.
Families will do their part by making an affordable and realistic family contribution.
....
But students and their families should be able to afford college without borrowing for tuition, and with lower costs for other expenses.

What's the scale for this? At what income will a family have to contribute to college financing? What is a realistic contribution? Is this influenced by the number of children they have? Will the lower middle class benefit from further grants? Does the student's 10-hour a week income go to their tuition or is that their money to keep for expenses? Sounds like they'll contribute their earnings. It keeps saying "shouldn't graduate" without borrowing...but I have no numbers to go by. I understand she doesn't want to pay for Donald Trump's kids to go to college; however, how do I know this would actually help my family at its income level?

As for student loan interest, her plan states

Under Hillary’s plan, if you have student debt, you will be able to refinance your loans at current rates. An estimated 25 million borrowers will receive debt relief, and the typical borrower could save $2,000 over the life of his or her loans.
For future undergraduates, the plan will significantly cut interest rates so they reflect the government’s low cost of debt. This could save students hundreds or thousands of dollars over the life of their loans.

How far will the rate be cut? When the rate is cut, will older borrows be able to refinance at those lower rates?

Which exact loopholes is she closing to pay for it? How much will those loopholes bring in? How high of a tax bracket will these loopholes reach? I've seen her plan for capital gains tax reform. Is that included? Either way, how much will that bring in? I can find talk of the details but no numbers for the income it'd produce.

The plan talks about states that participate or contribute. I live in Alabama, which never wants any programs in general. What about the states the refuse to participate? Will their funding and grants be cut? How will that work?

Good ideas without committing to full free tuition off the bat, but what are the numbers? How does this really help the middle class? I see little to show how my family would benefit without knowing the numbers.

[bravenak]

1. Um. Did Bernie and Martin not say that in their plans taxes can rise on the middle class?

Hillary is against a raise in middle class taxes. So is the middle class.

[Duckhunter935]

3. FULLY PAID FOR BY IMPOSING A TAX ON WALL STREET SPECULATORS.

The cost of this plan is fully paid for by imposing a tax of a fraction of a percent on Wall Street speculators who nearly destroyed the economy seven years ago. More than 1,000 economists have endorsed a tax on Wall Street speculation and today some 40 countries throughout the world have imposed a similar tax including Britain, Germany, France, Switzerland, and China. If the taxpayers of this country could bailout Wall Street in 2008, we can make public colleges and universities tuition free and debt free throughout the country.

https://berniesanders.com/issues/its-time-to-make-college-tuition-free-and-debt-free/

[hill2016]

5. nope

it's not going to pay for it fully.

that's why there are no hard numbers on how much it can actually raise.

[pinstikfartherin]

22. Just want to add to this...

Here is a breakdown of his current legislation for free college tuition with specifics about the tax and more: http://deepsouthrebel.blogspot.com/2015/11/bernie-sanders-free-college-tuition-plan.html.

[Duckhunter935]

23. Impressive

Sorry, the page you were looking for in this blog does not exist.

[pinstikfartherin]

25. Ack! My error!

I shouldn't have put a period at the end of my sentence. Try this:
http://deepsouthrebel.blogspot.com/2015/11/bernie-sanders-free-college-tuition-plan.html

[pinstikfartherin]

7. Finally, a response!

Do you mind checking out my original thread that was serious about this issue rather than inflammatory and seeing if you can answer these questions? I'd greatly appreciate it because it appears the only way I can get someone to talk about details is to post something that will get you all worked up!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251810997

Thanks in advance!

[bravenak]

10. Too funny!

Okay. See you there.

[hill2016]

2. how is that

screwing the middle class?

not having free college isn't screwing.

[pinstikfartherin]

8. Thank you for responding.

Do you mind checking out my original thread that was serious about this issue rather than inflammatory and seeing if you can answer these questions? I'd greatly appreciate it because it appears the only way I can get someone to talk about details is to post something that will get you all worked up!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251810997

Thanks in advance!

[TexasTowelie]

4. The answer for this question,

"When the rate is cut, will older borrows be able to refinance at those lower rates?" is in the excerpt that you included with the OP:

"Under Hillary’s plan, if you have student debt, you will be able to refinance your loans at current rates."

[pinstikfartherin]

9. Thank you.

But what if the rate changes? If it is tied to something, which we cannot tell, will they only be able to refinance once and not if it gets even lower?

Thank you for responding. My original thread on this was ignored (http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251810997) and if she is the nominee, I want to understand her proposals.

[TexasTowelie]

13. Here is some information about how student loan rates are determined:

https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/types/loans/interest-rates

I don't know any of the details, but I suspect that if you refinance a student loan then you will have a one-time student loan fee attached to that loan which would be similar to what would occur if you refinance any other type of loan. That would keep people from chasing after small drops in the loan rate.

I don't know whether there would a limit of only time to refinance the loan, but with interest rates at near record lows and most economists expecting interest rates to rise over the next few years it would probably be good to lock in those lower rates.

[pinstikfartherin]

14. I understand that's how they are determined now, but...

I was more wondering how things would change under Hillary's plan. It will obviously change in some form because it states that loan rates will change. I also wonder if those who get to refinance under HRC's plan will avoid the fee.

Thanks for your answer, though!

[Cheese Sandwich]

6. It sounds like a complicated scam. There's no reason we need a complicated system. Make it simple.

[Hekate]

20. As one of my first college profs use to sigh, "Simple minds, simple answers."

Life is complicated.

[Hekate]

11. No, it does not screw the middle class. She has a good and fair plan.

We didn't get "full free tuition" in the 1960s in California, but fees were very low compared to what they are today because the state heavily subsidized higher education so the maximum number of students could participate.

Sorry to say, but Alabama and the rest of the South always spent less on education. What pisses me off is that in the 1980s and 90s California also decided to spend less and less on it.

In any case, when she referenced 1960s California I knew exactly what she was talking about because that's when I was working my way through on a 20 hour a week minimum wage job and my babysitting money from high school. My mother sent me $20 a month when she could. If community college and university had not been affordable, likely none of us kids could have made it. As it was, I graduated debt free.

If higher education is not subsidized by our taxes, only the rich get to go. Same thing with K-12, frankly. However, education used to be pretty much left up to the individual states.

[pinstikfartherin]

15. Yeah, Alabama sucks.

But see, I didn't actually mean it screws the middle class. I really wanted answers to the questions I posed here and in my original thread...but it appears getting people worked up is the only way to get attention! http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251810997

I appreciate your response. Either way, we need to invest and help lower education results. I just don't know how to do that in states like mine. Luckily, I've finished college, but this will be important to me if I have kids. I may just have to move, ha.

[CBGLuthier]

12. She is a compromiser. Her husband was a compromiser. Compromising has fucked us all.

We need a decisive leader not a middle of the road, no position outside the polls, tool of the elite.

[Hekate]

17. Decisive leaders such as you describe tend to be Republicans and despots, not Democrats and liberals

Compromise is how we get things DONE in government and in life.

[jfern]

16. 10 hours a week of work during the semester likely means another year of college

That could end up costing more than it saves.

[Hekate]

18. I worked a half time job and so did my brother. He kept to a full course load....

....but I took fewer classes per semester. He doesn't have ADD, while I do have ADD, and it affects my ability to concentrate. Nonetheless he finished a Master's Degree in one of the sciences, taking out student loans to finish the MA.

I finished my BA and paid as I went. I had no car. I got skinny. I never lived in a dorm or other student housing, because I found much cheaper lodgings. (In midlife I went back and got my PhD, but not the same way.)

IF you can pay as you go and not take out loans, the added time does not add to the cost, because you are not accumulating debt. That's why it is critical to bring down the cost of fees and tuition via tax funded subsidies and stop this nonsense of trying to get rid of students in under 4 years.

Loans and grants have their place, but they quickly became a racket and imo now often do more harm than good.

The overall cost of public colleges and universities is out of reach for too many students and their families, but "free" is not only an unattainable goal but puts me in mind of Sigmund Freud's rationale about the fees he charged, something on the order of, People value what they pay for. Instead, I would aim for an attainable low cost, supplemented by grants for those too poor to pay even that.

[jfern]

19. But if you took another course instead of a part time job, that could actually save you

by allowing you to graduate a year earlier.

[Hekate]

21. LOL. My family was not well off. I was working for my actual food and rent. I cut my expenses....

...to the bone. I mentioned before in one of my posts that my mother would send me $20 a month when she could. That was it.

Somehow the thought of having no food to eat or bed to sleep in kept me bussing out to that department store I worked at every night from 5pm - 9pm. Study time started after I got back to my shared apartment and after my inconsiderate roomie turned off her tv.

I was determined to finish; education had value to me. I look back and realize I could have used a mentor, someone to tell me I was in the wrong major and it wouldn't hurt to change course, someone to tell me how the system actually worked, because my parents couldn't do that for me. All they could do was hold a college education up to me as though it was the Holy Grail, which to them it was. They didn't know how it worked. But they gave me the goal.

You should want it, and it doesn't hurt to have to struggle for it. BUT society should not make it impossible to attain nor burden middle and low income students with lifelong debt in trying to achieve it. Whatever society values it pools its money for via taxation. Look around you -- do you see open sewers running in the streets? No, because our taxes are paying for that infrastructure, plus whatever other fees local municipalities need to levy. Society should value education for its citizens at least as much, and be willing to substantially subsidize it.

[Warren Stupidity]

24. Why is this any more complicated than the way we do public schools?

If Donald Trump wants to send his kid to public high school he can at no additional cost. Just extend the concept of universal public education from k-12 to k-16. Now lets talk about how to fund it and stop talking about how to keep the private college gravy train in place and dividing us into who pays and who gets a free ride.

1. MAKE TUITION FREE AT PUBLIC COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES.
This is not a radical idea. Last year, Germany eliminated tuition because they believed that charging students $1,300 per year was discouraging Germans from going to college. Next year, Chile will do the same. Finland, Norway, Sweden and many other countries around the world also offer free college to all of their citizens. If other countries can take this action, so can the United States of America.

In fact, it’s what many of our colleges and universities used to do. The University of California system offered free tuition at its schools until the 1980s. In 1965, average tuition at a four-year public university was just $243 and many of the best colleges – including the City University of New York – did not charge any tuition at all. The Sanders plan would make tuition free at public colleges and universities throughout the country.

...

6. FULLY PAID FOR BY IMPOSING A TAX ON WALL STREET SPECULATORS.
The cost of this plan is fully paid for by imposing a tax of a fraction of a percent on Wall Street speculators who nearly destroyed the economy seven years ago. More than 1,000 economists have endorsed a tax on Wall Street speculation and today some 40 countries throughout the world have imposed a similar tax including Britain, Germany, France, Switzerland, and China. If the taxpayers of this country could bailout Wall Street in 2008, we can make public colleges and universities tuition free and debt free throughout the country.

That's how to do it.

[earthside]

26. The bigger point ...

... Sanders proposes big, progressive ideas.

Hillary ... meh.

No doubt about it, Hillary is the 'conservative' in this 2016 race for the Democratic Party's nomination for President.
Why the arrow on the Hillary 'H' points to the right is becoming clearer and clearer.