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Obama’s State of the Union Address geared to ease burden of mountainous student loans
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Written by Veronica Wyman, Co-Editor-in-Chief
President Barack Obama released his first annual State of the Union Address on Jan. 27 to a joint session of Congress along with a television audience of 48 million. In the 70-minute speech Obama discussed his plans to repackage his existing priorities of the job market and economy, but in regards to students, he disclosed future alterations made to student loans to help recent graduates, proposing a cap on federal loan payments.
During his address, Obama spoke of world-class education as a high priority of his administration and sought to offer relief to college students who graduate with substantial student loans. The president mentioned a $10,000 tax credit to families paying for four years of college and plans to limit a graduate’s federal loan payments to 10 percent of his or her income. This contrasts to the present yearly payments capped at 15 percent of discretionary income. Additionally, Obama states that the government will forgive any outstanding balances after 20 years or after 10 years if the individual is a government employee.
“These plans are headed in the right direction,” junior David Ansari said. “One of my biggest fears towards college is not being able to afford my dream schools. I’m glad that students will have more options and not be suffocated by all this debt they may find themselves in.”
Other students remained skeptical of the future implications.
“I’m psyched to see that the issue of over-burdening student loans is being addressed, but in actuality how will this happen without several problems?” senior Brittany Hamby said. “First of all, won’t loan companies just make more restrictions on payment plans? Secondly, making the federal government responsible for a larger share of student debt is likely to worsen high college costs.”
The State of the Union Address also touched on Michelle Obama’s efforts to tackle child obesity, first-time clear plans to allow gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military and goals to double exports over the next five years to increase jobs.
Furthermore, Obama admitted he shared blame for setbacks suffered during his first year in the White House. In wake of last month’s defeat to the Republicans in the Massachusetts seat of late Democrat Senator Kennedy, he did not attempt to gloss over criticisms of his healthcare reform and heavy-spending on the banking bail-out.
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