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Superb Idea: Student Loan Payback Based on Earnings

Slate's Eliot Spitzer (yes, that very one) thinks the way we pay for higher education is bonkers, and he's right. College costs too much. It's a...

 Patrick James
03.06.09

Slate's Eliot Spitzer (yes, that very one) thinks the way we pay for higher education is bonkers, and he's right. College costs too much. It's a financial deterrent that prevents people from pursuing degrees and career paths of social (but not financial) reward-or from attending altogether. His solution has been been praised by (otherwise diametrically opposed) thinkers Milton Friedman and James Toobin Tobin. It's the income-contingent loan. Or, as he puts it, the smart loan:Instead of paying upfront or taking loans with repayment schedules unrelated to income, students would accept an obligation to pay a fixed percentage of their income for a specified period of time, regardless of the income level achieved. Suppose a university charged $40,000 a year in annual tuition. A standard 20-year loan in the amount of $160,000 (40,000 times four) would produce an immediate postgraduate debt obligation of $1,228.50 per month, or $14,742 per year, not sustainable at a salary of $25,000 or anything close to it. Under a smart loan program, the student could pay about 11 percent of his income, with an initial payback of $243 per month, or $2,916 per year, which is feasible at a job paying $25,000. If, after five years, the student's salary jumped to $100,000, payments would jump accordingly and move up over time as income increases. After 20 years, assuming ordinary income increase, the loan would be paid off.There are all sorts of questions to be asked of this idea's application, but the idea itself seems dead on. What do you think?Photo, "The Registrar's Office," by Flickr user specialkrb.
Articles

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However, all of that has changed since the election of Donald Trump in 2016. Voters in Maine, particularly those who lean left, have run out of patience with Collins and her seeming refusal to stand up to Trump. That frustration peaked with the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

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NHM Vienna/Hans Reschreiter

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A study published in Science took a look at over 100 late Neolithic and early Bronze Age skeletons found in a burial site in southern Germany. The study "shed light on the complexity of social status, inheritance rules, and mobility during the Bronze Age." Partly by looking at their teeth and the artifacts they were buried with, researchers were able to discover that wealth inequality existed almost 4,000 years ago. "Our results reveal that individual households lasting several generations consisted of a high-status core family and unrelated low-status individuals, a social organization accompanied by patrilocality and female exogamy, and the stability of this system over 700 years," the study said.

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez jusst endorsed Bernie Sanders for president

via Truthout.org / Flickr and Dimitri Rodriguez / Flickr

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A new PSA smartly reveals just how dangerous tackle football is for kids

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via ICE / Flickr

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On October 3, the family was driving near the U.S.-Canada border in British Columbia when an animal veered into the road, forcing them to make an unexpected detour.

The family accidentally crossed into the United States where they were detained by ICE officials in what would become "the scariest experience of our lives," according to a complaint filed with the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security.

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