As MN CD 3 Race Heats Up, Seniors Sponsor Candidate Forum

BLOOMINGTON — Senior citizens, retirees and others met at the Minnesota Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Hall last Friday to hold a candidate forum in the 3rd congressional district hosted by the Minneapolis Regional Retiree Council(link is external).

The focus of the form was on debt and its debilitating impacts.

“My niece recently completed graduate school at the University of Minnesota [and] she told my brother that she expects she will never own a home because of the debt she incurred while going through school. Debt is a rising tide threatening to drown the American dream,” said Leif Grina, President of the Minneapolis Retirees Council.

View the complete October 23 article by Filberto Nolasco Gomez on the Workday Minnesota website here.

DeVos Ends Obama-Era Safeguards Aimed at Abuses by For-Profit Colleges Image

The following article by Erica L. Green was posted on the New York Times website August 10, 2018:

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos scrapped a regulation that would have forced for-profit colleges to prove that the students they enroll are able to attain decent-paying jobs. Credit: Michael Reynolds, EPA, via Shutterstock

WASHINGTON — Education Secretary Betsy DeVos formally moved Friday to scrap a regulation that would have forced for-profit colleges to prove that the students they enroll are able to attain decent-paying jobs, the most drastic in a series of policy shifts that will free the scandal-scarred, for-profit sector from safeguards put in effect during the Obama era.

In a written announcement posted on its website, the Education Department laid out its plans to eliminate the so-called gainful employment rule, which sought to hold for-profit and career college programs accountable for graduating students with poor job prospects and overwhelming debt. The Obama-era rule would have revoked federal funding and access to financial aid for poor-performing schools. Continue reading “DeVos Ends Obama-Era Safeguards Aimed at Abuses by For-Profit Colleges Image”

Want to grow the US economy? Cancel student debt, new report shows

The following article by A.P. Joyce was posted on the mic.com website February 6, 2018:

Credit: whiterussian via morguefile.com

Less than a week after President Donald Trump gave his State of the Union address touting the strength of the American economy under his presidency, the stock market saw one of its worst trading days in recent history, with stocks falling by about 1,175 points.

With the markets in turmoil and the fate of the U.S. economy under Trump looking more uncertain than ever, a new report has given lawmakers an easy guide on how to alleviate the economic pressure on 44 million Americans, while also lowering unemployment and growing the economy with one painfully simple policy. The answer: cancel all student debt. Continue reading “Want to grow the US economy? Cancel student debt, new report shows”

The Relationship Between Student Debt and College Completion

Center for American Progress logo

On June 29, 2015, Ben Miller with the Center for American Progress wrote the following:


While it is easy to bemoan high levels of student debt and big numbers—such as the more than $1 trillion that Americans currently owe—debt itself is not inherently bad if it allows students to earn high-quality degrees and credentials that they could not otherwise afford. The major issue is whether students who borrowed completed their education. In other words, it is far better to be a bachelor’s degree graduate with $28,400 in loans—the national average in 2013—than a dropout who owes $10,000.

To measure the relationship between debt and college completion, the Center for American Progress conducted an analysis that compared the total amount of student loan debt owed in each state with the number of adults ages 18 or older who earned at least an associate’s degree. The analysis indicates that the average debt of student borrowers can often be misleading. In some states, small debt burdens for borrowers look much worse given low levels of postsecondary attainment. In other states, a high average debt for borrowers may not be as concerning because so many residents are earning postsecondary degrees.

See data on student loan debt per borrower and per graduate in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

You can read the original post here.