After the banking crisis struck Europe, suicide rates skyrocketed across the continent, because people couldn't handle living with their debt and the austerity policies that the banksters running the EU and the IMF forced on them. It's clear that the student loan debt crisis is having some pretty devastating effects on our society and way of life, and that something needs to be done about it.
That's where Sen. Elizabeth Warren comes in.
On Tuesday, Warren, along with many of her fellow Democratic senators, introduced the "Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act."
The act would allow Americans with outstanding student loan debt to refinance their debt at the lower interest rates we have right now. Today, many Americans are struggling with student loan debt at interest rates of 7 percent or higher on their loans. But, new students taking out loans are paying rates as low as 3.86 percent, thanks to the Bipartisan Student Loan Certainty Act which was passed by Congress last summer.
Warren's "Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act" would let Americans with outstanding student loan debts at higher interest rates to roll over their loans at the newer, lower rates.
In a press release on the new legislation, Warren said that,
"Exploding student loan debt is crushing young people and dragging down our economy. Allowing students to refinance their loans would put money back in the pockets of people who invested in their education. These students didn't go to the mall and run up charges on a credit card. They worked hard and learned new skills that will benefit this country and help us build a stronger middle class and a stronger America."
America's student loan debt crisis is like nothing our country has ever seen before. Over a trillion dollars in debt is deforming an entire generation, crippling an economy, and contributing to a wide variety of social ills and health problems.
Fortunately, people like Elizabeth Warren are taking the bold actions necessary to lift millions of Americans out of debt, so that they can be active and contributing members of our society and economy.
And it's a great start.
But if we could spend several trillion on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, why not -- now that we're winding those down -- use that kind of money to pay off all the student loan debt out there altogether, with a debt Jubilee?
Students shouldn't have had to go into debt to go to school in the first place! Before Reagan, college was free or super-affordable in almost all of America.
Let's wipe the student loan debt off the books, and end future student loan debt by investing in our intellectual infrastructure like we did in the middle years of the 20th century, when the number of college graduates in America more than doubled and there was virtually no student debt.
Instead of exploiting the newest generation of Americans, lets invest in them, by making all public universities and community colleges free. It worked like a charm after World War II and built America. We can do it again!
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