Facebook created to build student voice on debt

[Moses]

November 19, 2005
Seeking Student Voices, Financial Aid Group Mimics Facebook
 

By Issac Wolf

(AXcess News) Washington - Earth to students: Get your act together and demand more reasonable loan programs.

That's the message of a new yearbook-style Web site, Studentdebtalert.org, launched days before Congress voted Friday to slash federal student aid by up to $14.3 billion.

Unveiled Monday, the Web site lists dozens of students' financial profiles from about 30 schools, and its sponsors hope it will to grow into a forum where thousands share aid woes and demand better loan packages.

The testimonials at Studentdebtalert.org are part of a campaign to put a face on student debt, say its organizers, the Student Public Interest Research Group. Christine Lindstrom, PIRG's higher education program director, said the goal is to "make sure the student's voice is injected into the political process."

An early attempt in the nascent Internet effort to attract and galvanize students into political action, Studentdebtalert.org rides the coattails of successful college-oriented sites.

The new Web site mirrors Facebook.com, the networking site in which high school and college students create profiles and then hyperlink to networks of friends and social groups.

Facebook.com has found the golden formula to attract and captivate young adults – growing from its base at Harvard to 2,500 college campuses, and touting itself as one of the 10 most visited sites on the Internet.

But Facebook.com has no advocacy bent, nor has it engaged students in meaningful political dialogue.

On Studentdebtalert.org, testimonials are listed by school and give ballpark estimates of student debt at graduation. They include background about each student, such as interests, field of study and year of graduation.

The site is also a platform for students to develop local support for financial aid, including coalitions and letter writing campaigns.

"Student debt is not visible," Lindstrom said. "There are a myriad of solutions available. The use of loans to pay for college is becoming increasingly common and it does have consequences."

The Web site isn't meant only to help indebted students lobby Congress, Lindstrom said. "If campuses all gave grants, that's a solution too," she said.

"Our intention is to give a voice to students and their concerns," said Lindstrom, adding the students' aid profiles are unverified.

The Web site's goal of alleviating student debt was foiled – at least in the short run – early Friday when the House passed a Republican-backed, five-year budget that cuts spending by $50 billion – including $14.3 billion from student aid.

The legislation would add $5,800 to the average college student's debt, which is currently $17,500, Lindstrom's organization estimates.

Students have increasingly borrowed money to finance college. Lindstrom said the volume of college loans has increased 60 percent since 1998.

For some politicians, a student-led push for loan reform doesn't come a moment too soon.

"You need to stop downloading the music for 20 minutes and start downloading the congressmen," said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the senior Democrat on the House education committee, speaking to several hundred student-protesters two weeks ago, as Congress prepared to vote on the budget.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the party whip, said lending companies, including Sallie Mae, take advantage of students. "They have been engaged in outrageous practices for any business," he said at a constituent breakfast last month.

"I wish students would take 15 minutes for themselves to talk about their issues," Durbin said. "Students should coalesce to become a political force."

Sallie Mae, which services loans to 8 million current and former students, is the largest private lender to students, said company spokesman Tom J. Joyce. Created in 1972 as a quasi-governmental organization, Sallie Mae cut its ties with the federal government in 2004.

Sallie Mae's lending practices are "above board," with non-government backed student loans comparable to industry standards, Joyce said.

"We are certainly not a predatory lender," Joyce said.

Sallie Mae does not support the cuts, Joyce said. Political efforts to "trim fat" or "excess subsidies" to lenders would result in a diminished pool of funds for students to draw loans from, Joyce said.

"If we start to cut those so-called subsidies, what happens?" Joyce said. "Banks will stop investing in students."

Demographers project 2008 will have the largest high school graduating class ever because of the "echo boom" generation, Joyce said.

He said that 80 percent of growth in high school graduates comes from minority students - "the groups that really need financial aid."

"Now is not the time to be cutting student loans," Joyce said.

The student aid site is at studentdebtalert.org

Source: Scripps Howard Foundation

[RPankn]

"You need to stop downloading the music for 20 minutes and start downloading the congressmen," said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the senior Democrat on the House education committee, speaking to several hundred student-protesters two weeks ago, as Congress prepared to vote on the budget.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the party whip, said lending companies, including Sallie Mae, take advantage of students. "They have been engaged in outrageous practices for any business," he said at a constituent breakfast last month.

Horses***. Everybody knows that to get a politician's attention, you have to grease the skids. And politicians and banks know college students will never have the kind of money or oganizational capability to set up their own PAC to compete with commercial bank political pimps.

And Sen. Durbin, if you think Sallie Mae is taking advantage of students, what are you doing about it? Where is the legislation? Empty electioneering posturing.

[RPankn]

Sallie Mae's lending practices are "above board," with non-government backed student loans comparable to industry standards, Joyce said.

"We are certainly not a predatory lender," Joyce said.

Then why all the suits against your SLM subsidiary for engaging in deceptive and pressure tactics to get students to take SLM's private student loans? Why do these suits allege that SLM and its co-conspirators set up fictitious tech and trade schools, which close only a month after they open, leaving students holding the bag and with thousands in student loan debt? Why do your goons then harass them for payment, turn their accounts over to collection agencies or, in some cases, shady law firms for legal action, when the law clearly does not obligate these students to pay under the circumstances? Why do they have to go to the time and expense of hiring an attorney to get SLM out of their lives, when your company should clearly know better?

[RPankn]

"Now is not the time to be cutting student loans," Joyce said.

Imagine how much money there'd be available for post-secondary education if we cut even just a quarter of the Pentagram's budget and redirected it toward better uses like education.

[Moses]

And its the failure to tabulate this that has people disgusted, permanently, with the Democrats, who have made it very clear who they answer to: AIPAC and the wealthy fundraisers, and not their constituents. They have their heads up their As*ses.