I was reading the excellent
Bernie News Roundup just now, and saw this short paragraph:
Yet the average person is interested in many of the planks of the Sanders campaign. For example, the idea that middle-class college students shouldn't pay a higher rate of interest on government loans than the Wall Street bankers who recently wrecked our economy. That is a mainstream idea, one that clarifies issues that affect 90 percent of Americans directly.
Yes! Thank you!
For the last year or two, I have been looking at my student loan statements with a mixture of frustration and... uh no... just a lot of plain ol' frustration.
I started paying the loan back in 2005, so now I am ten years in. In 2007-2008, I hit a rough patch, was briefly homeless, and had to take advantage of the 3-month period of forbearance offered by my student loan holder. They let me skip my payment for three months, which did help me tremendously at the time. But other than that, I've been paying it and mostly on time. Especially for the last few years, I think I've paid it on time every month.
Here's what I keep looking at and what keeps frustrating me.
Rigged for the pleasure of the 1%
My original principal amount was $36,406.
The total aggregate I've paid back so far is $22,917.
My current principal balance is $28,819.
The amount of interest I've paid so far is $14,173.
Somebody has already made over $14,000 off my educational loan!
And from where I'm sitting, it looks like I'll be paying for this until I die.
And whoever is getting my money, they're going to collect many tens of thousands more dollars from me.
Is $14,000 not enough profit for them?
That's why when I read the paragraph above, I wanted to shout out YES! so loud that it would reach all the way to Kepler-452b.
I'm glad I got my degree and I am earning more money now than I would be without it. But I went into education, which is not an especially lucrative field unless you're willing to run charter schools in an unethical fashion (which I'm not). And I took a job at a private school, not a public one. So I don't think I qualify for any forgiveness programs. And I'm not even asking for forgiveness. I'll pay back what I borrowed. I'm just asking not to be GOUGED by paying a (significantly) higher interest rate than Wall Street pays. Not only have I not wrecked anybody's financial system or economy, I actually help young people learn how to learn. That means I'm actually worth it.
And Bernie knows that.
I am getting pretty excited for the event I'll be attending tomorrow evening!