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Education Debt

My son's student loans are killing my retirement. What can I do?

Q. To assist our son in fulling his dream of becoming an Air Force pilot, we took out a Parent Plus loan to cover his tuition. We borrowed $90,000 over four years. Is there any write-off we can take? It's tough paying $1,200 per month and almost $1,100 goes to interest. It's killing my retirement.

-- Retirement-poor

A. You son is very lucky that you took out loans on his behalf.

Hopefully the day will come when he can help you with the payments.

Congress gives new hope for those who didn't qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness

Some student loan borrowers will get another chance to qualify for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.

Congress has set aside $350 million to help fix what lawmakers have called a "glitch" in the enrollment process.



Teachers, social workers, public defenders and others who work for the government or non-profits can qualify for student loan forgiveness after making 10 years of payments. But many who thought they were on track for forgiveness have since found out they were in a repayment plan that makes them ineligible for debt relief.

House Republicans want to cap student borrowing and overhaul the federal loans program

House Republicans are planning to propose a bill this week that would bring about drastic changes to federal loans servicing and higher education policy, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. The bill is part of a push to provide students with more skills in a modern labor market, but would also do away with programs meant to ease students' borrowing burdens.

Soon, you may get your federal student aid on a debit card

Every year, the U.S. Department of Education gives over $120 billion in federal grants, loans and work-study funds to more than 13 million college students, making it the largest provider of student financial aid in the country. Now, students may be given some of these funds on a debit card.

According to The Hill, the Department of Education plans to launch a pilot program which would place financial aid dollars onto debit cards for up to 100,000 students. Earlier this month the department began searching for a contractor to help with the program.

Student loan giant sues Connecticut over its crackdown on student debt

A battle brewing between states, student loan companies and Betsy DeVos’s Department of Education looks like it will come to a head in a courtroom in the coming months.

The Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, or PHEAA, one of the large firms that manages federal student loans on behalf of the Department of Education, sued Connecticut’s department of banking, it’s banking commissioner and the federal Department of Education on Thursday over the state’s student loan laws.

Teachers say grants from Ed Dept were wrongly converted into loans

Some teachers who received a special grant from the Education Department to help pay for their own tuition are saying their grants were wrongly converted into loans, NPR reported.

The department’s Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education (TEACH) grants are awarded to college students who teach in “high-need” fields like math and science at low-income schools.

The Department Of Education Cuts Off A Student Loan Watchdog

The letters "CFPB" may not be much more than alphabet soup to your average student loan borrower. They stand for Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a new-ish federal agency — created in 2011 — with a unique mission and a big effect on student lenders and for-profit colleges accused of defrauding or otherwise mistreating Americans.

What we now know about who struggles with student debt

Older African Americans and college students with children disproportionately bear the burden of education debt, according to a pair of reports released this week that researchers say show the need for more nuanced solutions from higher education.

800,000 Washington residents owe student-loan money — to the tune of $24B

One of every seven adults in Washington owes money they borrowed to pay for college or career training, and taken all together, those borrowers owe more than $24 billion in student loans.

Want to grow the US economy? Cancel student debt, new report shows

Less than a week after President Donald Trump gave his State of the Union address touting the strength of the American economy under his presidency, the stock market saw one of its worst trading days in recent history, with stocks falling by about 1,175 points.

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"If we don't change direction soon, we'll end up where we're going."
– Irwin "Professor" Corey
The road to success is always under construction
– Lily Tomlin
"Bankruptcy laws allow companies to smoothly reorganize, but not college graduates burdened by student loans."
– Robert Reich
"Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood."
– Marie Curie
“This would be a much better world if more married couples were as deeply in love as they are in debt.”
– Earl Wilson
"There is scarcely anything that drags a person down like debt."
– P. T. Barnum
“What I would like to do... once I take care of all my kids' student loans, is buy a red 1965 Mustang and fully restore it.”
– Mike Quigley