Reducing Your Student Loan Debt: Barack Obama's plan to help College Student Loan Borrowers

From: BarackObamadotcom  | Oct 26, 2011  | 19,656 views

Share this: http://my.barackobama.com/studentloanvid

Nearly six million students who have both guaranteed and direct loans will soon be able to refinance them and get a discount under President Barack Obama's student loan debt reform plan: "Help Americans Manage Student Loan Debt". You'll only have to write one check a month and within a year it will ensure that more than 1.6 million college students won't be required to make loan repayments over 10% of their income.

President Obama's plan will make college more affordable for students. All remaining debt is forgiven after 20 years of payments for college students. Debt is forgiven after 10 years for teachers, nurses, members of the armed forces, and others in public service careers.

These are just some of the important repayment options designed to make student loan repayments more affordable. All of this progress builds off student loan reform President Obama signed into law in 2010. All of this progress makes sure that more students from working and middle class families can get college educations and the opportunities that come with them.

Bankers don't get to be middlemen for student loans anymore. We saved $68 billion dollars by taking them out of the equation and a lot of the money is going towards loans and grants to make college more affordable for more people.

Share this news and join the movement. President Obama needs your voice to be heard. He needs you to tell Congress that reforms like this are what we're fighting for.

Get the word out by taking the first step here: http://my.barackobama.com/studentloanvid (less info)

“No N***ers Please” Sign Shocks Michigan State University Students

EAST LANSING, Mich. – The campus of Michigan State University has been rocked by recent acts of racial intimidation directed toward Black students. The student body at the state’s largest university made their voices loudly heard on Tuesday night that these acts will not be tolerated.

“The incident that really jump-started this movement was an incident at Akers Hall where someone wrote ‘No Ni**ers, please’ on a door of a young lady’s room,” said Mario Lemons, the president of the MSU Black Student Alliance (BSA). “The residence life staff told us not to talk about. Of course, someone took a picture of it and sent it to one of us. 

Read more: http://www.thegrio.com/education-1/michigan-state-university-rocked-by-racial-intimidation.php

This is what was written on a students door deck at MSU

Students are standing up for what's right and speaking on this issue at MSU. 

(Black Student Alliance of MSU)

Occupy Wall Street

The Occupying Wall Street movement and debate whether it is a nascent Tea Party-like political force, or a movement to re-focus the public debate on economic unfairness, joblessness, and the lack of accountability for our current national situation.


For more information on the Occupy Wall Street Movement visit: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/o/occupy_wall_street/index.html?inline=nyt-org

News You Can Use - Troy Davis

News You Can Use is still a blog about controversial issues and issues that affect the community around us.

Last night Troy Davis was sentenced to death by the state of Georgia with little to no evidence supporting this case. Did they execute a innocent man?

Here is his story: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/d/troy_davis/index.html

 "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." -Martin Luther King Jr

Judge Greg Mathis response to the Troy Davis case: 

Students Move Back to FSU for the new school year

I am the individual behind the camera interviewing students and getting footage.

Michigan Budget Cuts May Have An Effect on College Tuition

Michigan's Governor Rick Snyder proposed a new budget for the State that may have an effect on college students. In this New Budget, Snyder plans to cut back on funding for Universities across Michigan. Heres the article from the Detroit Free Press for more detail: 


Before AARP railed about Gov. Rick Snyder declaring war on senior citizens, before actor Jeff Daniels accused Snyder of lying about film credits, before Mayor Dave Bing said the governor's budget threatens Detroit's fragile fiscal progress, Snyder had already run a gauntlet of red flags and raised eyebrows from his own inner circle.


"Oh, man, you're killing me," Snyder's chief of staff Dennis Muchmore piped up weeks ago, when he realized the governor was serious about taxing pensions. "My gosh, that's a lot to take on."


Muchmore, 64, a longtime ex-lobbyist and Lansing sage, knew instinctively that Snyder was playing with fire by taking away a tax break for senior citizens, a powerful and growing voter bloc.


Lt. Gov. Brian Calley, 33, saw the hurdles, too. Calley now has to defend eliminating virtually all tax credits for business, including one for filmmakers that Calley himself voted to create a few years ago when he was in the Legislature.


Snyder welcomed, even enjoyed, differences of opinion during the intense internal budget debate, key advisers say. But he also had a compass and direction that never wavered.


If an aide dwelled too long on the political implications of some decision, Snyder would call a halt, saying, "You signed up for this trip."


Snyder led the charge for radical changes
Nearly every day from Jan. 3 to Feb. 16, for two to four hours a day and sometimes longer, Snyder and his inner circle met to hammer out details of the next state budget, their manifesto for the coming revolution.


They packed it with radical departures from past practice -- a new flat corporate income tax, elimination of business tax credits and pension tax exemptions -- and deep cuts in spending on schools, prisons, nearly everything but Medicaid.


Joining Snyder for most budget-forging sessions, in a second-floor conference room across from the Capitol, were budget director John Nixon, newly arrived from Utah; chief of staff Dennis Muchmore; senior adviser Dick Posthumus; communications director Geralyn Lasher; Lt. Gov. Brian Calley, and strategy director Bill Rustem.


Participants came armed with the usual stuff of budget meetings: paper, iPads, spreadsheets. Lasher usually brought her Michigan State University Tom Izzo water glass, Muchmore a Coke or Pepsi.


Each meeting started on time. All Snyder meetings start on time.


Snyder, a businessman and political novice, had promised repeatedly that he would "reinvent Michigan," but candidates say a lot of things. Would he really shake things up? Or bow to politics as usual?


His top lieutenants, a mix of new blood and old Lansing hands, soon found out.


"Whenever people would get weak in the knees and offer a political answer about why not to do something," said Calley, Snyder would come back with, "What's the right thing to do?"


When longtime Lansing staffers were called in for briefings on individual department budgets, Lasher said, "You could tell some were thinking, 'OK, we've got to get the new guy (Snyder) up to speed.' But then they were really taken aback at the depth of his questions, and you could see they were thinking, 'Whoa, he's way beyond up to speed.' "


Hair-raising ideas
Snyder said at his budget presentation Thursday that his own team was often taken aback by the boldness of the changes they were deliberating. When I asked Nixon and Snyder who in the group kept pushing the most radical ideas, Nixon smiled and kept pointing to Snyder.


Muchmore said there were long, spirited discussions about a host of budget issues:
• Medicaid. "In the end, we just couldn't cut there," he said.
• Ending Michigan's tax exemption on pensions. Despite the predictable outcry, the group bowed to Snyder's fairness argument. "A young, unmarried mother of two gets taxed on her earnings. Why should any other group be exempted?" Muchmore said.
• K-12 education and universities were cut by 5% and 15%, respectively, after "long and very intensive discussions."
• Film credits. "Early on, the governor decided we were going to do away with as many tax credits as possible," Muchmore said, "but the (Detroit Metro) Convention and Visitors Bureau was a big advocate of the film credits. We heard from the studios, from other supporters." The budget proposal ultimately included a $25-million cash incentive for 2012 and would honor film credits already awarded, but it's clearly less generous than the program now in place.


When asked about the unique input of each key player in the budget process, those who were in the room are reluctant to say.


The no-credit rule
There's a no-credit rule that the core team observes, one said. In other words, no public chatter that could be interpreted as angling for credit or pushing a personal agenda.




Still, it's clear that Nixon, who also is president of the National Association of State Budget Officers, had a big role.


He's a Medicaid expert who advanced the idea of including a 1% insurance claims tax in the new Michigan budget to replace a 6% Medicaid HMO use tax, which the federal government may soon ban.


He also helped craft incentive grants for universities that hold tuition hikes below 7%.


Posthumus, a 20-year veteran of elective office, will have a key role in shepherding the budget though the Legislature.


Calley played a major role in shaping the taxation policy elements of the budget.


'Eyes getting bigger'
Clearly, Snyder's inner circle knows now that they have embarked on a crusade that will get national attention -- and also cause some indigestion along the way.


"On some of the politically charged things, Dick Posthumus and Bill Rustem and Geralyn would look at each other, with their eyes getting bigger and bigger," Muchmore said.


Above all, he added, one thing is perfectly clear.


Snyder is the guy leading this charge. "In every single meeting," Muchmore said, "the governor asked more questions than everybody else put together."


Tom Walsh: twalsh@freepress.com

Ever Consider Grad School? Here's Why You Should Go....

So you have made it through four years of college and have earned your degree. Now what? Good question. Ready for the answer? Graduate school.

While it may be difficult to consider more schooling, consider making graduate school your next step, particularly if you want to land a job that requires more than a four-year degree or you want a higher starting salary. Just be prepared that your graduate education will differ greatly from your undergraduate experience. Unlike your undergrad degree, there are no general studies requirements in graduate school. There are no electives. Your field of study is narrower and delves deeper, forcing a mastery of your chosen field, and you will spend the length of your schooling on your specific subject. This is because your goal in grad school will be to gain the specialized training necessary for the career toward which you are working.

The benefits of an advanced degree are numerous, and so are the reasons for earning one. Many people return to school after working for a few years in order to advance in their current career, and many others are returning to change their career, as their interests and skills have evolved. The following illustrate some advantages graduate studies have over undergraduate studies.

Relationships with faculty

You will find that your relationship with your professors will be different in graduate school; graduate professors often show a peer-like respect for their students. They know their students have made a big life decision and commitment by attending grad school, and they rarely view them as pupils, instead seeing them as equals who share a similar interest. They know that their students are serious and focused, and they expect a higher level of work because of it. In graduate school, professors give fewer tests than in undergraduate studies; instead, they require more writing and research, and expect you to have the ability to work independently. Graduate professors do not hold your hand, but rather present you with concepts and ideas to encourage individual direction. Courses will typically involve more discussion than lectures, and you will discover that the friendships and connections you make in graduate school are deeper than your previous education experiences.

Immersion and the pursuit of passion

It is likely that, when you were an undergraduate, you did not know specifically what you wanted to do for a career. As a graduate student, you will develop clearer goals and possess greater motivation as well as a commitment to doing more intensive work in a field that you love. Hopefully, during your undergraduate studies, you found a subject that truly piqued your interest; graduate work gives you the opportunity to further develop your skills in that area. Graduate work also affords the opportunity to obtain hands-on experience to help you apply your knowledge to the real world. You will be surrounded by professors and other students who are as passionate about your field of study as you are. This makes studying a more enriching and collaborative effort, and promotes a sense of belonging for all involved.

Intangible career advantages

It's no secret that a graduate degree is more prestigious than an undergraduate degree, and this fact is not lost on companies and institutions when they seek new employees. Graduate studies can ensure enhanced qualifications for a career, which typically result in better, higher-level jobs. A graduate degree is a great achievement that increases job satisfaction and self-confidence. Graduate students have more networking opportunities, and receive knowledge and training that would take years or cannot be learned on the job; they also have a superior work/life balance, as many grad students must work and study at the same time. Further, people with graduate degrees are likely to start their careers at a higher level and continue to advance your career at a faster rate than those who earned only a bachelor's degree. Basically, whether you want to manage others or start your own business, a graduate degree can earn you the extra credibility you need for success.

Tangible career advantages

Those with master's or doctoral degrees are poised to earn significantly higher salaries than those with a bachelor's degree. Holders of a graduate degree end up being better compensated for their education than if they had stopped at the undergrad level. The Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), recently found that recruiters are looking for employees with "soft skills," such as leadership and communication. Recruiters are finding these skills in the prospective employees who have earned graduate degrees.

The GMAC Global MBA Survey 2006 Comprehensive Report underscores the fact that people with advanced degrees earn a higher salary than people with just an undergrad degree; for example, it showed that starting salaries for MBAs in business-related fields can be upwards of $92,000 per year, nearly double the earnings of people with undergraduate degrees. The report also states that two-thirds of MBA students receive job offers that include a significant signing bonus, and that 52 percent of students working toward their MBAs receive and/or accept job offers before they even graduate.

Last, if your dream is to become a social worker, college professor, lawyer, doctor, psychologist,therapist, etc., you will find that state licensing requirements make a graduate education mandatory. 

So, whether you enjoy academia and are not ready for the often difficult job market, want to contribute more to society or simply need more schooling for your chosen profession, graduate school is the next logical step towards a career. What are you waiting for?

_______________________________________________________________

http://www.gradschools.com/article-detail/why-grad-school-62