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Letter: Student loans are good investments

The Columbian
Published: May 29, 2012, 5:00pm

There is a current debate about whether interest rates should be doubled on student loans from 3.4 to 6.8 percent.

George Will, in his May 20 column, “Less bipartisanship needed on student loans,” mentions that since the maximum amount borrowed is $5,500 a year, if the rate was raised, the difference in interest each month would only be $10 a month. However, for a four-year degree, on which most students owe $25,000, the difference is $40 a month.

For a student just starting out, $40 is half a day’s labor.

Will says the average college grad makes $71,000 a year, compared to $41,000 without college. This difference in income makes it unnecessary to subsidize student loans,he says. That may have been true at one time, but now the average wage is much lower. Also, as Malcolm Berko pointed out in his May 27 column, “Save for retirement instead of kids’ college,” “Over 54 percent of bachelor’s degree holders younger than 25 are either jobless or underemployed as wait staff, cabbies or telephone solicitors.”

The bottom line is that students need all the help they can get. Other industries are subsidized; we should be able to subsidize the national resource of our nation’s young minds. They are the future.

Patrick Little

Vancouver

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