25 years old and deep in debt

[CountDeMoney]

Fuckers wonder why I'm always in a foul fucking mood. 

to be fair you were in a fool mood before all this happened too

That was nothing.

[citizen k]

Alarm Raised by Plan to Ease Credit Norms on U.S. Parent Loans
By Janet Lorin - May 27, 2014

Parents whose financial standing disqualify them from most loans may have an easier time borrowing to pay their children's college costs under a U.S. government proposal to ease credit standards.

The plan doesn't sit well with consumer advocates and economists, who are sounding an alarm. The Education Department wants to look at "adverse credit" over two years instead of five and consider approving loans even if parents have delinquent credit balances, according to an agency document released this month.

Consumer advocates say loosening the norms for parent PLUS loans will only hurt borrowers, and default rates, already on the rise, will continue to climb. Just 45 percent of the outstanding $62 billion in parent loans are being actively repaid, mostly because borrowers don't need to make payments until six months after their children graduate or leave college, according to department data. Families are struggling to pay for college as the costs increase faster than the rate of inflation.

"Some of these loan characteristics -- potential payment shocks and not verifying a borrower's income -- certainly strongly contributed to the mortgage crisis," said Katie Buitrago, senior policy analyst with the Woodstock Institute, a Chicago-based nonprofit group focused on fair-lending issues. "If you are deferring for 4 1/2 years, that's a lot of time for your financial situation to change."
'Bottom Line'

When Parent PLUS loans were first offered in the 1980s, borrowers had to start repaying right away, while their children were in school. Congress changed the law in 2008 amid the financial crisis, letting parents defer payments. When the time comes to pay, many are startled by the higher balance that includes accrued interest.

"The idea that you wouldn't have to pay anything for years might make it more likely you don't pay attention to what the bottom line says," said Susan Dynarski, an economist at the University of Michigan. "I don't understand the logic behind deferral on a PLUS loan."

The Education Department declined to comment on why it wants to change the standards and what the next steps are for the PLUS proposal.

Since a 1992 change in the law, parents have been able to borrow through the PLUS program up to the cost of attendance, minus any aid the student receives. One year at a private college can top $60,000. Parents who have trouble meeting their loan obligation don't have the option of income-based repayment, a protection offered with federal student loans.
'Draconian' Practices

"If someone defaults on their PLUS loans, they're subject to the draconian debt collection practices of the federal government, which include wage and benefit garnishment," Buitrago said. "It's much more difficult to discharge PLUS loans in bankruptcy than mortgage loans."

The majority of parents borrowing with PLUS loans choose to defer, according to Chris Greene, a spokesman for the department's office of Federal Student Aid. Interest rates are fixed for the life of the loans though parents need to take out a separate loan for each school year. The rate for the academic year starting July 1 is 7.21 percent, up from 6.41 percent currently and as high as 8.5 percent in 2009-2010. Parent PLUS loans also carry an origination fee equal to 4.3 percent of the loan amount, four times the rate for the most popular student loan.

In March, the department released default rates for parent loans for the first time. The rate for all schools rose to 5.1 percent for parents who deferred and began repaying in 2010, up from 2.6 percent in 2008.
Default Rates

For-profit schools had the highest default rate for parent PLUS loans in that time frame, at 13.3 percent, up from 6.3 percent. The rate at four-year public colleges was 3.1 percent, up from 1.9 percent, while it was 3.4 percent at private nonprofit four-year colleges, up from 2.0 percent. It's unclear whether the default rates will be released going forward, said Denise Horn, a department spokeswoman.

Many Parent PLUS borrowers have modest assets and income. In the 2011-2012 year, about 36 percent of students whose parents took out the loans also received Pell grants, which are for low-income students, according to National Center for Education Statistics data.

"A good share of these families are not the most financially secure households," said Thomas Weko, a former Education Department official who is managing researcher for post-secondary education at the nonprofit American Institutes for Research in Washington. "A decent number of people are going to get in trouble."
'Frightening' Scenario

The department had tightened some credit standards in 2011 to match the stricter requirements of private lenders, who a year earlier lost the ability to originate federal loans, Weko said.

Under the proposed standard changes, parents could have almost $2,100 in loan balances that are delinquent 90 days or more, are in collection or charged off, and still qualify for a PLUS loan. Under current rules, any delinquency of 90 days or more is a reason for rejection, and if a parent appeals a rejection, the Education Department has used a $500 threshold for bad credit. It would still look back five years for some metrics such as default, bankruptcy and foreclosure.

"Until we bring in some element of the ability to repay, I don't know if we're providing the right loans to the right people in the right amounts," said Suzanne Martindale, an attorney for Consumers Union. "That's frightening."

The Education Department doesn't have the legal authority to impose an "ability to repay standard" for eligibility for any of its loans, said Horn, the agency spokeswoman.

To contact the reporter on this story: Janet Lorin in New York at [email protected]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-27/alarm-raised-by-plan-to-ease-credit-norms-on-u-s-parent-loans.html

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

Universities can't fulfil the myth, but they can't become a vocational school either
Universities come with a mythical mission. But they don't fulfil it.

by Chris Lee - May 31 2014, 12:46pm CDT
SCIENCE POLICY AND EDUCATION

Is it time to rethink higher education? I'm someone who went through the system and I'm now, to a greater or lesser extent, contributing to its maintenance, so it seems strange that I should advocate its dismantling. Yet I'm beginning to think that I ought to.

Unlike most rants of this nature, I have no complaints about the modern standard of education. The myth of falling standards has been with us since the Roman republic decided that they wanted the south of France as their personal back garden. If they really were falling for that long, we would all be living in caves wondering how our fore bearers were able to create this thing called fire.

Indeed, I think that students today learn a hell of a lot more than I did in my day. Although I may mourn the fact that Lagrangian mechanics is now a footnote on the way to a physics degree, that is not a sign of falling standards, but rather tells us that it is more important to learn other things to obtain a relevant education.

No, my complaint is that universities do not fill the role that there were supposed to play, and they are very inefficient at fulfilling the role that they actually play.

Full article is much longer.

[Ideologue]

The ABA has proposed a new accreditation standard that would permit law schools to admit up to 10% of their student body sans LSAT scores--and still retain accreditation.

[Savonarola]

This should make Ide's day; a professor gets beaten and there's video surveillance of the incident:

Arizona professor's jaywalking arrest quickly gets out of hand

(CNN) -- A jaywalking rarely makes national news, but the arrest of Arizona professor Ersula Ore has done just that.

What began as a walk home from classes at Arizona State University ended with police charging the professor with assault.

The English professor was walking in the middle of a Tempe, Arizona, street one evening last month when a campus police officer stopped her. The incident escalated, and she was handcuffed and landed on the pavement.

Appearing Monday on CNN's "New Day," Ore was asked about her own words and actions in the incident and replied, "I think I did what I was supposed to do. I was respectful. I asked for clarification. I asked to be treated with respect, and that was it."

In a dashboard camera recording released Friday, Ore steadfastly questions officer Stewart Ferrin and asks him to be respectful.

The two talk over each other as the situation escalates, with Ferrin threatening to arrest Ore unless she produces her ID.

"If you don't understand the law, I'm explaining the law to you," the officer says. "The reason I'm talking to you right now is because you are walking in the middle of the street."

Ore explains that she walked in the street to avoid construction.

"I never once saw a single solitary individual get pulled over by a cop for walking across a street on a campus, in a campus location," she says.

The explanation does not satisfy, and Ferrin begins to cuff the professor.

"Don't touch me," Ore says, her voice beginning to rise. "Get your hands off me."

The officer warns her to put her hands behind her back, or "I'm going to slam you" on the police car.
"You really want to do that?" Ore asks. "Do you see what I'm wearing?"

Ferrin responds, "I don't care what you're wearing." She kicks the officer.

Shortly, Ore is on the ground. Her lawyer, Alane M. Roby, says the action caused her dress to ride up, "exposing her anatomy to all onlookers."

Ore faces charges of assaulting a police officer, resisting arrest, failing to provide ID and obstructing a public thoroughfare. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Thursday.

The university said it found "no evidence of inappropriate actions by the ASUPD officers involved."
Given the "underlying criminal charges," the university declined to provide any more details.

Monday on "New Day," Ore said the incident started when the officer stopped his car next to her and asked whether she knew the difference between a road and a sidewalk.

She said she asked him, "Do you always accost women in the middle of the road and speak to them with such disrespect and so rudely as you did to me?"

She said that at no point did he ask her name or tell her why she was being questioned.

"He throws the car door open actually, is what happens, and he's towering over me," she said. "He's intimidating. I don't know why he's so aggressive."

Roby said they'll fight the charges and accused the officer of escalating the situation in violation of his training.

"Professor Ore's one crime that evening was to demand respect that she deserves as a productive, educated and tax paying member of society," Roby said in a statement to CNN, adding that they maintain any actions Ore took were in self-defense.

That includes the caught-on-camera kick she delivered to the officer's shin.

"She can clearly be heard on the dash can video instructing the officer not to grab toward her genital area prior to him reaching for her in attempt to pull her skirt down over her exposed private area," Roby wrote.

When asked on "New Day" about kicking the officer, Ore said she'd been advised by her lawyer not to comment.

The incident has made headlines as far away as Iran and England. Closer to home, her department at the university has asked for a thorough investigation, including "an audit on the conduct of its police force vis-a-vis racial profiling."

The university said it has completed one investigation. If evidence of officer wrongdoing surfaces, it said, an additional inquiry will be conducted and appropriate measures taken.

You can see the video at the site:  http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/30/justice/arizona-jaywalking-arrest/index.html?hpt=hp_c3

[DGuller]

I didn't see any private areas being exposed.

[Eddie Teach]

Did you go through it frame by frame?

[DGuller]

Did you go through it frame by frame?

Three times.

[Ed Anger]

Crack KGB analysis there Slava.

[DGuller]

Crack KGB analysis there Slava.

Yeah, it's no NSA analysis, I'm sure they have good algorithms to find exposed privates.  Snowden didn't take that secret with him, though. 

[Ideologue]

Nothing ever has or will make my day.  It's like you DON'T EVEN KNOW ME.

However:

The English professor

Professor Ore's one crime that evening was to demand respect that she deserves as a productive, educated and tax paying member of society,

First thought: LOL.

Second thought: this is the most classist, shitty way to put it possible.  I didn't know tax dollars were supposed to buy you respect before the law.  What a fucking maroon.

[Ideologue]

Third thought upon seeing the video: I hope you enjoy your resisting arrest charges!  How's that for an education?

[garbon]

Yeah everyone should just be docile when confronted by the police.

[Ideologue]

It would've saved me a lot of trouble.

[Admiral Yi]

Yeah everyone should just be docile when confronted by the police.

  If docile means handing over your ID when requested, then I think it's a damn good idea to be docile.