RFK Jr.'s Policies
on Higher Education,
- Loans and Structural Reforms
Under Construction
The student loan system is currently (c. 2023) tremendously stacked against students, and this is especially so for economically disadvantaged students. The massive loan debt incurred by many students can be a crippling expense throughout all of their post-college lives.
* Total student loan debt in the United States is greater than even total US credit card debt!
* More than 44 million students are tormented by these huge debts that in aggregate are now nearly up to two trillion dollars in the US!
* Everything is so expensive now in the face of recently accelerated inflation and rising housing costs and 45 % of student loan debtors are expected to default when moratorium is lifted.
The difference in what it cost to go to college back in the 1960s compared to the early 2020s is pretty huge – nearly twice as expensive: Overall tuition together with general life expenses for students back in 1963 was around $10,600 back in ‘63’ - but had jumped up by more than two times over by 2020 - reaching an average of nearly $26,000!
And the majority of this increase was in the cost of tuition itself – growing from 4,300 in 1963 to right around $14,000 in 2020. This equated to an average increase in tuition in all college schools of more than 143% between those years – nearly two-and-a-half-times as much money!
RFK Jr's Focus on Solutions
Make College Debt Dischargeable in Bankruptcy
In the 2005 Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, Congress made student debt non-dischargeable in bankruptcy. That put student debt in a different category from medical debt or credit card debt, making it inescapable and sentencing millions of young people to an entire lifetime of debt servitude.
Student debt is one of the only debts that you can’t get out of – even through bankruptcy!
Back in 2005 Joe Biden and friends in Congress fought for the legislation that created this situation: the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act.
Laws are in place giving corporations the rights of person-hood – but while those same corporations can use bankruptcy to escape most any form of debt and loss from bad investments, real people – students starting off on their path in life are locked out of a similar route to extricate themselves from loans for an unhelpful college education – loans that trail them through life like a giant ball and chain.
As the Kennedy 24 website points out, going back to ancient times it’s been recognized that inescapable debt makes functional democracy impossible. And in fact the idea of ‘uniform bankruptcy’ was written into the United States Constitution (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 4), and it was only the manipulations by Wall Street and their political cronies that excluded students from this option.
Opening Up the Bankruptcy Option for Student Loans
In his Presidency RFK Jr. will emphasize legislation to invalidate this aspect of the 2005 Bankruptcy Act and reopen to impoverished students a route to freedom from bad investments they were corralled into before their adult lives had even begun.
Opening Up Student Loan ReFinancing Options
Insanely, students are also not allowed to refinance their academic loans, as one could with most any other form of debt. So RFK Jr. will also work to allow for the refinancing of student loans so that those who cannot otherwise discharge their debt can attain a manageable monthly payment schedule, and work out other options towards paying their loans down.
Free Long-Time Student Debtors by Abolishing
Interest on New and Existing Loans
As President Bobby Kennedy Jr. will pressure Congress to accept and act on Bills that have been proposed to end interest charges on future and existing student loans.
If students are being pushed into unrealistic student loans and then trapped into default on those loans, the RFK ‘24 campaign says let’s bailout the students rather than the predatory lending organizations – banks or otherwise.
Taking it to the Sources
Making the Schools Responsible for Loan Defaults
- Push Them to Keep Tuition Reasonable and Education Effective -
Colleges and Universities have given in to the temptation to continuously raise tuition costs because of the widespread availability of ever growing student loans. Because schools themselves are not responsible for loans that only yield poor educational results they can continue to charge more and more every year and leave the students to face the consequences. The Kennedy campaign takes the stance that “if colleges and universities were on the hook for the debts that students incurred, they’d be more careful to lend to serious students who are likely to graduate.”
Today a college degree really isn’t worth what many of us were brought up to believe it would be. Unless you really know what you want to do and a college degree is an important part of following that path then another career education route is likely to be a whole lot more helpful and effective.
It’s true that even without the career boosting benefits of a degree the traditional college experience can still be great for learning social skills making important lifelong connections and... ? ///...
But these days with the extreme cost of college tuition and the rising expenses involved in just daily survival, unless you’re a trust-fund kid with money to spare, then there’s probably equally good and much more affordable ways to achieve the social and networking benefits of a two or four-year degree - from similar interest groups, Meet-up, online options, etc. And if you do crave collegiate level learning for its own sake – like weirdos such as me – there’s so many, really an overwhelming amount, of online free or low cost options!
Nearly half of today’s college graduates in the U.S. work in jobs where their degrees aren’t at all relevant. “Some 17 percent of hotel clerks and 23.5 percent of amusement park attendants hold 4-year degrees.” (Kennedy24 Higher Education policy page)
Equally Fund Education in the Trades
Education for hands-on trade-workers such as plumbers, builders, mechanics, electricians and other such technicians hasn’t traditionally had access to the same kind of funding as more scholastic and collegiate education; and this is something that President RFK Jr. will change – making sure that these important fields have equal options for financial support. Education for these trades often consists of just a year or even less so along with providing a meaningful path to those not inclined to the college path the financial savings will be considerable.
An ‘Inner’ Peace Corps for Domestic Restoration & Healing!
Another great option to ambivalent college enrollment that RFK Jr. will create is an expanded and domestic version of the International Peace Corps that his Uncles JFK and Sargent Shriver helped bring into existence back in the early ‘60s. This Domestic Peace Corp will be a great balance and alternative to military service as well – an alternative in which any high school graduates will have the opportunity to be paid for meaningful, useful work, while learning life skills and making (great) social connections. These Corp workers will help the disabled, sick and elderly, participate in important ecological and infrastructural restoration and in other activities to make our country and world a better place.
