Loan Me One

When I was applying to colleges, my parents encouraged me to make no hesitations. And while my guidance counselor had some reservations about my list of potential colleges (she essentially told me that I wouldn’t even make it into our best state school, the University of Virginia), my parents told me to ignore her discouragement and to apply to the best. There was no harm in trying right? When it was all said and done, I had applied to eight colleges, six of which were either private institutions or out of state universities. After visiting the schools and weighing the options (Should I go to school close to home or far away? Does this school have the majors I’m most interested in? Will I be able to have a diverse group of friends?), I was down to two choices and a very difficult decision: either attend UVA and pay in-state tuition or attend Brown University and pay essentially $30,000/year more.
Needless to say, in the end I chose Brown. But I literally didn’t settle my plan until the morning that both schools needed my final decision. Truthfully, for two weeks I was telling everyone that I would be staying in-state. I owe a lot of who am I today to the decision to come to Brown. But that experience almost didn’t become reality because of money. Like other universities, Brown offers financial aid packages to accepted students. But, like many other students, my parents happened to fall right in the middle class – they made too much money for me to qualify for any financial aid or federal loans, but not enough for us to comfortably pay for such an expensive education. This wasn’t their first time at the rodeo – both of my parents attended college and had financed my sister’s entire education just a few years prior. The difference was the price. I felt guilty leaving home and expecting them to pay $50,000+ every year when they had other expenses and aspirations. Junior year I started taking out private loans, cosigned by my mother. Not having much financial experience, I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into. Honestly, I still don’t know the full extent of what I’m going to deal with after I graduate. And while I do feel extremely lucky that I didn’t have to take out loans for my entire education (as many people do), I can’t help but be fearful of what is to come. Debt is going to, in one way or another, dictate my future. The student-loan debt in the United States reached the $1 trillion mark just a few months ago. We’re taking out more money every year to keep up with rising tuition costs, all in the pursuit of a “better life.”
A few weeks ago, Congressman Hansen Clark (D-Mich.) introduced a bill to help alleviate this situation – the Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012. The bill would forgive up to $45,520 of eligible student-loan debts for new borrowers after they’ve made 120 payments. It would also forgive any outstanding debts for those who borrowed before the bill, if the borrowers have already made 120 payments in the past 10 years. The plan places a maximum payment amount at 10% of a borrower’s discretionary income, caps interest rates for all federal loans, improves public service loan forgiveness, and refinances private education loans. You can read more about it here and here.
My parents say they will help me repay the loans I’ve taken for my education, but they shouldn’t have to. They’ve done so much for me; I want to be able to help myself so I can help them in the future. Hopefully this bill will be a good first step.