Student Loans

Dear Liz: I graduated from college last summer and was lucky enough to get full-time employment. However, I have a great deal of college debt, including private and federal loans. Are there government programs that help pay back college loan debt? Do you have any suggestions? I cringe at the thought of paying double what I owe over the life of the loan because of interest and want to get this debt under control in the next few years instead of 15. Answer: Your eagerness to pay off your student loan debt is admirable and is particularly appropriate when it comes to your private student loans.

College graduation is typically a time to tally accomplishments and to look ahead. But for many graduates, it is also a time to tally student loans and figure out how to repay them. About two-thirds of college graduates have some student loans to pay off, and their average debt is about $25,000 to $28,700, according to estimates by education experts and organizations. (About 10% of those with loans owe more than $50,000 or so.) Many college seniors say they had not thought much about their debt until they received summaries just before graduation.

President Obama will make student loans easier to repay for millions of borrowers without adding to the national deficit, his administration said Tuesday. Bypassing an uncooperative Congress, Obama will, by executive order, reduce to 10% the maximum percentage of income that 1.6 million current students will have to pay toward their student loans. They will also be eligible for loan forgiveness in 20 years instead of 25. He will also allow at least 6 million people with different types of federal student loans a chance to consolidate them into one while reducing their interest rate by a half percent starting in January.

Brenda Small didn't think twice about taking out student loans to pay for nursing school in the late 1980s. She figured she could easily pay off the $20,000 bill - until an injury a few years later left her permanently unable to work. Her dreams of working in her chosen profession vanished, but not her student debts. Including interest and penalties, the 59-year-old Los Angeles woman now owes more than $39,000 and can't afford to pay the debt from a disability income of $1,234 a month.

Tasha Younger has been one of the hidden statistics in the growing number of graduates and former students overburdened with education loans. The 38-year-old mother of two — still trying to pay off her loans a decade after quitting nursing school — has been delinquent on her monthly payments but never in default. Statistics typically show how many students simply fail to make payments. But a recent survey has found that for every person who defaults on student loans, at least two more are like Younger: late or short on payments.

If you're facing years of student loan payments but aren't making much money because you're working in public service, the federal government has some good news for you. A law that takes effect Tuesday could allow you to have some of your college debt forgiven.

Recent university graduate Amy Horwath has grasped the golden ring in this weak economy: a job in her chosen field. Just one problem: She's $50,000 in debt, mostly student loans. "Sometimes it seems overwhelming," said Horwath, 23, sitting in her small apartment, where her Cornell University diploma for hotel administration hangs on the wall. "I feel like I'm barely treading water." Horwath belongs to a generation of college graduates who traded debt for degrees. Graduating seniors leave college with an average of $23,000 in student loans, according to FinAid, a student financial aid website.

For the Obama campaign, the creation of “The Life of Julia” was the latest campaign gimmick - drawing in female voters through social media to an infographic showing what a young woman's life might look like under the policies of a White House run by Mitt Romney, rather than by President Obama. But Romney does not seem amused. “This little cartoon that they have on the life of Julia really reveals the weakness of the president's policies,” the presumed Republican nominee told Fox News host Sean Hannity during a taped interview that aired Tuesday night.

Drug giant Merck & Co. said the planned spinoff of its Medco Health Solutions Inc. subsidiary to shareholders should happen this summer. Merck, which said in April that it would jettison Medco, on Wednesday filed details of the deal with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The transaction is expected to be tax-free to Merck holders. Medco is a pharmacy benefits management firm that develops prescription benefit programs for employers and runs a mail-order and online pharmacy.

President Obama set off yet another cacophony of partisan bickering in Washington by warning that interest on some student loans would skyrocket if Congress didn't act soon. Last week lawmakers from both parties hinted that they were ready to solve the problem, albeit in a temporary and superficial way. But first they ginned up another meaningless political battle, leaving roughly 7 million students in the lurch. At issue is the interest on subsidized Stafford loans, which the federal government issues directly to low- and moderate-income students.

The European elections have concluded and the results are clear: Voters in France and Greece are a lot smarter than economic policymakers in the United States. Or at least they're a lot more attuned to the folly of relying on austerity as a tool of economic growth. If you've missed the weekend's headlines, French voters elected their first Socialist president since Francois Mitterand left office in 1995. The new president, Francois Hollande, won after promising to loosen the reins of economic austerity and impose more sacrifices on the rich.

WASHINGTON -- The political battle over President Obama's plan to keep student loan interest rates from skyrocketing escalated as Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic proposal to tax wealthier earners to pay for it. Republicans stopped the effort with a filibuster, even as some in the GOP view this as a politically risky move at a time when middle-class families continue to struggle to afford college. Rates for 7 million new undergraduate student loans are set to double to 6.8% on July 1 if Congress fails to act. The vote was 52-45, failing to reach the 60-vote threshold needed to overcome the GOP filibuster.

For the Obama campaign, the creation of “The Life of Julia” was the latest campaign gimmick - drawing in female voters through social media to an infographic showing what a young woman's life might look like under the policies of a White House run by Mitt Romney, rather than by President Obama. But Romney does not seem amused. “This little cartoon that they have on the life of Julia really reveals the weakness of the president's policies,” the presumed Republican nominee told Fox News host Sean Hannity during a taped interview that aired Tuesday night.

WASHINGTON - As lawmakers return to the Capitol this week, Congress will launch into a summer of political gamesmanship that will turn floor fights into proxy battles for the presidential campaign. The votes will do little to resolve crucial issues facing the country. But they will establish themes that help define President Obama and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, in the minds of voters. Democrats will seek to portray Republicans as protecting the wealthy at the expense of the middle class.

Re "Sarkozy, rival won't get vote of far-rightist," May 2 Note to French President Nicolas Sarkozy: Before you cozy up to the far-right Marine Le Pen, ask the Republicans how well the tea party cooperates with its benefactor. Don't forget the law of unintended consequences. Barry Davis Agoura Hills ALSO: Letters: Nathan Fletcher's GOP defection Letters: Beverly Hills' subway obstructionism Letters: Congressional deadlock over student loans

Re "Don't rush for Social Security," Business, April 29 While it is true that delaying collecting your normal Social Security benefit beyond your full retirement age gives you an 8% annual increase, to get that 8% increase you give up 100% of the normal benefit you could be collecting. Here's an example: You can start collecting $1,000 a month at 66 or delay until age 70 (48 months), and get $1,320 a month (8% yearly increase for 4 years). To get that extra $320 a month you've given up $48,000 that you could have already collected, and you'll be over 82 before you finally catch up - if you live that long.

Re "The politics of student loans," Editorial, April 30 Although this editorial is about the interest on student loans, the controversy in Congress over this issue is representative of the way our legislators have been acting for a while. Even when the parties agree on a goal, they are so busy gaming the opposition that they cannot accomplish anything. This behavior makes the American people more cynical and convinced that Congress is corrupt and incompetent. This will only make our lawmakers irrelevant to our citizenry and make the laws they pass irrelevant too. This is exactly the prescription for the fall of the American empire.

Alternately serious and silly, President Obama weighed in on the ongoing Secret Service scandal and even "slow jammed" the news as he taped an appearance on NBC's "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon" on Tuesday. Obama, already the first sitting president to appear on "The Tonight Show," "The Late Show" and "The Daily Show," treaded even deeper into the overnight hours as part of his two-day, three-state tour of college campuses to press his case to extend lower interest rates for some student loan programs.