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U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan joined us for a live web chat on Friday, Aug. 24, to discuss education-related topics, such as student loans and the cost of college.
Here’s one of the Secretary’s answers to questions from the live chat. (See below for the full Q&A.)
Phil asked:
"Would you recommend students submit their FAFSAs to multiple schools to comparison shop among aid packages offered?"
Secretary Duncan replied:
"Yes, students absolutely should submit their FAFSA applications to multiple schools. We know that 75% send their FAFSA to only one school."
"Students should look at multiple schools when choosing college and choose one based on what's best for them, considering price, the quality of education, and graduation rates."
Secretary Duncan is the ninth U.S. secretary of education.
He has served in this post since his confirmation by the U.S. Senate on Jan. 20, 2009, following his nomination by President Barack Obama.
Here’s the full chat archive:
Leave a Comment:
By student aid I think he means 'loans.' That's great government, let's get kids started out in their careers with a boat load of debt. Debt, the solution to all our economic ills.
Its how capitalism works, particularly with globalization.
Technology and outsourcing have eliminated 50 million middle class jobs. The only solution is somehow keep that same amount of money going to that same size of the population or kill off 50 million 'jobless losers'. Otherwise you will just keep on seeing the same exploitation of a very limited labor pool and very limited housing market. People will pay whatever they have to if they think it will let them hold onto a middle class lifestyle, even if it isn't very realistic.
I disagree with you alan_static. I have four kids who have all applied and attended college to varying degrees of success. The student (and parent) loans are part of the "financial aid" offering but there are other categories as well.
Including scholarship grants (not to be paid back) from government and private sources. An example of Federal Government grant is the Pell grant. It is limited to a maximum amount that will not go very far at a top tier D1 type school but helps substantially at a local community college. Some states have grants for the top graduates that attend both high school and college in that state. Both public and private colleges have donation grants for students who qualify.
Other aid money that is not a loan but does have to be earned is the "student work program" which is usually included in the "financial aid" package. Most often the student works for the school a limited number of hours at a predetermined rate per hour, sometimes even tax exempt. That money is applied to the bill. If the bill has been paid then the student gets the monies paid directly to them.
So I think he means exactly what he said which is to submit your applications both for attendance as well and financial and see which school is the best fit for you or your student. If you only apply at one place you have nothing to compare.
What does your post have to do with submitting a FAFSA to more than one college, knightof despair?
Student work program is an 'aid program'. OK. Maybe if I work at McDonalds during college McDonalds can count that as student aid for the college.
No alan_static, not McDonalds, unless you are attending their Hamburger University. A lot of colleges have students who work for the college during the school year. The college includes this offer of (sometimes) tax exempt employment to help some students of lesser means pay for school.
I worked for my school. But I had a job and they didn't call it student aid. Why can't a student just work for a without giving it a fancy name? Because they want us to feel better about ourselves and our college. Instead just give students a job and stop wasting everyone's time with these fake FASFA loan applications.
Anybody remember the movie 'Hamburger?' from the 80's. Remember they went to college to learn how to make hamburgers, kind of like what student learn in college now lol.
Because the vast majority are the same. My state has 6 different 'state' universities, many community colleges, and myriad national private schools. All of them are unaffordable in one way or another, from trying to find parking and commuting to a dozen satellite campuses to the dollar cost to the time cost.
Education is vital to the future of our country and it simply does not make sense to attach an enormous price tag to it that simply retards our future growth.
Great idea, shop around for $100,000 in loans and $300 scholarships...
Here is a cold hard fact, most college graduates are going to be making less than 40 grand for the first 10 years after they graduate, this money will NEVER get repaid and you know it.
Yeah I love it, I don't know how many of those stupid FASFA forms I filled out in college. All I got in response was, here's a big fat loan. Never once did I get an outright grant or scholarship through FASFA.
The government gives out grants every once in a while to call it student aid, but what FASFA really is, is a student loan applications.
One thing they should make clear is that student loans cannot be discharged like other forms of debt.
Another scam from our corrupt government.
Yeah they heavily push loans, and when most students are tens of thousands of dollars in debt why would they bother wasting an entire weekend chasing down a $300 scholarship?
Education should be free, the rest of the world is laughing at us.
knightofdespair: Anything that is FREE is not worth ****. I guess your parents never told you this.
Problems is that Government has been giving tons of money to colleges to help with cost, but instead of Collages tuition going down they been going up and up.
There was a new report about this about 6 months ago people.
Just like anything Government gets involved with instead of producing positive results like things costing less. They have had what they called unforeseen consequences, but they are never really unforeseen if you understood basic economics. Sorry to say I don't think there is anyone in Washington D.C. that even taken a course in Economics.
You're right, saddling 20 year olds with 6 figures of debt is working out great for us, I'm sure the government and banks are going to get back every cent of that 1 Trillion dollars and growing debt balloon.
High school is free, I guess that was worthless to you as well.
High school is free, wrong its not free. Every High school is being paid by Property Taxes and Bonds, yet your right about one thing it was mostly worthless.
No job I have every had has ever asked me to see my diploma. All I have to do is check a box saying Yes I have a High school diploma.
Regardless you didn't personally pay a cent to attend and it forms the foundation for further things. No reason something similar couldn't be used to higher education, at this point we spend 500x more on defense than education.
knightofdespair: If we did that sunshine only the super wealth would be able to afford the Extra Property Tax, yet even they would move the **** out too.
Then you get the unforseen consequences of doing something stupid like that.
Lets say in the area that has a college has over 100,000 thousand people living in that area. Once the new property tax starts, so people like you can go to college for FREE. With in one year you will find that there will only be about 87,000 people now living in that area. Due to 13,000 moved the **** out. Why they don't want too or cant pay the higher property tax. So now the college that gets the property tax to pay for Free education so you and people like you can get a free education now has a net loss of money. So now they need to find ways to make more money to PAY for your Free education. So they do Bonds and on and on for higher property taxes to bonds you end up with a College that will go bankrupt with in about 10 years. Why by then a area that uses to have over 100,000 people will be around 45,000 and that will not count the hundreds or thousands of jobs that left the area too.
Now do you understand Knight of Despair your free education is not FREE someone will have to pay for it. Sorry to say you and people like you do not have any common sense or any understanding of how the REAL WORLD WORKS.
Do you understand that putting easy to get but extremely difficult to pay off loans simply shifted the problem? There are no jobs out there to afford to pay this debt back. Spending $100,000 on an advanced degree has no more likelyhood of paying off than putting it all in a slot machine and pulling the lever, probably less in fact.
It wouldn't raise costs all that much if it was done right, at this point we spend trillions on war, trillions on healthcare but we can't figure out something every single one of our competitors are beating us at, with generational repercussions.
knightofdespair: might want to learn history every time we cut down our military we end up in another World War or Major Conflict. Sorry to say but cutting down the military in the end will cost a hell allot more in the near future to build it back up.
Again people like you cant seem to grasp the unforeseen consequence on the actions you want to do.
Ok I will just take your number: we spend trillions on war/ our Military. Say we cut that in 1/2. In about 3 to 5 years once our military Personnel/Supplies/Weapons and Extra are all gone a Major war starts. Guess what Sunshine just to get our military back up to the numbers we have now will cost 4 to 5 trillion to get it back to what we have now. So is that really a good option. **** NO.
If you really want to save money and cut ****, we need to cut off all foreign aid to all counties PERIOD.
It's positive to see someone in the government giving this kind of good advice. But it is only a tiny step in the right direction.
Students in general these days are taking out ridiculous loan amounts for educations that either provide them nothing or at least don't make it practical to pay back the loans. And the government backs up its "generosity" in doling out these ill-advised loans by making it illegal for the students to ever default. Students need to be advised to pursue degree plans that make sense financially and the government needs to stop guaranteeing loans for education paths that are stupid. Equally as important the unethical laws that exempt student loans from bankruptcy protection need to be repealed. Such laws are the very definition of usury.
Yes MC, Mr Duncan is such a font of wisdom. Check into how well he did on his last job as Superintendent of Chicago Schools. Wait a minute, isn't our illustrious POTUS from Chicago. Must be a huge coincidence.
EVERYONE RELAX. Stop freaking out on the loans. Take out the loans and once in repayment, use the IBR program. Simple! Even if you owe $500k in FEDERAL student loans, your payments are capped at either 15% or 10% of your disposable income. Even if you owe $1 million, your payments are still capped at 15% or 10%. And if you work for a non-profit or the government, your FEDERAL loans get forgiven in 10 years no matter what the total amount owed.
For those wanting to get in debt the least and want take the least economic risk getting educated:
1. Go to recruiter for Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard, Merchant Marines, Army, Marines. They will always support your getting more education from A.S. to B.S. to M.S. to Ph.D. to M.D.
2. Check out your closest junior / community college. Want to make money and be independent fast, ask for the best vocational degrees like electronics, nursing, medical tech degrees like Radiology or Respiratory Therapy techs, auto repairs....you can always go back later to a 4 year university to finish your B.S. and on to graduate school over life after you are economically independent, plus your work skills and resume will look more attractive to employers say when you get that B.S. at 30 years old with 10 years of real work experience.
3. Don't want any academic education right after high school, go to your nearest union halls/offices like the Operating Engineers Union, or Electricians Union, and others and ask if there are apprenticehips and training available... some construction workers like crane operators (but you have to be very good and dependenable) make 100K/year and more after 10 years or so of career.
Great plans, so who is going to pay the rent or the car payments until a good job can be secured? Pretty much all of your plans there require someone to be single and live at home until 25 with no bills whatsoever and a completely free schedule to rearrange every couple months.
His first option was the military. Out the door and on your own at 18, 17 with parents permission. Clothing, room and board included.
Which is great, how does someone get to 18-19 without a car? I went into the military at 19 with a car payment, guess what, they didn't pay enough to even cover that. So pretty much his entire solution boils down to: mooch off your parents.
They military won't even take someone 17, they are not legally an adult and cannot make a binding agreement to join.
Mitt Romney said this same thing last week and the MSM blasted him...I guess they didn't get the memo that Obama's Sec of Education and Mitt Romney were like-minded on this issue!!!
I took the student loans, I went to a community college and then state university, I applied for every scholarship I qualified for, and worked FT. I was 32 when I started college (second time around) and had a car payment, rent and other general living costs. The ideal of going to college right out of High School needs to change. I did that and was unsuccessful. After working and learning how to manage a budget/time I was better suited to do well in college. It wasn't someone else's dime, it was my money and I was going to get every bit of value out of it.
I wasn't making great money while I went to school but I was living below my means. I made choices to keep my expenses low like biking to work/school. Living in an apt that needed to be updated 20 years earlier. Coupons, Goodwill, hanging clothes out and planting a garden were a way of life. These were lessons I learn from my parents. Maybe some of these lessons need to be taught to this generation.
I graduated in 2007 and have paid back my student loans already. I have a thriving career and I didn't have to wait 10 years to land the "good job". I had that by my senior year in college. WHY? Because I showed employers I was dedicated, responsible and willing to change my lifestyle to succeed.
I agree with many comments here, there are many ways to fund your education. Investing some research time helps immensely. There are some poor choices in programs that do not have positive financial returns. Students should at least interview others in the field they are pursuing. What are the current salaries? How long did it take to reach those? What is the long term earning potential? Wait a year or two before going to college. Take general classes at the community college. Get to know the scholarship office. Be involved with whatever societies there are for your future career. Stop waiting for everything to be handed to you in a pretty, just-add-water package.
Although tuition is getting high, I don't believe higher education should be free. If it has no financial obligation, what is the value of your investment?
College has become the biggest scam around. Yeah, you need cred to get a decent job but taking two freaking years of extended high school and paying a hundred thousand dollars in some schools before you get to concentrate on your major is as stupid as it comes. Don't give me the community college deal because that is still glorified high school. This is why I sent my boy to Europe for school, half the cost and three years all concentrating on his major.
irst, full bankruptcy protections must be restored to all student loans, at a minimum. This will guarantee that the Department of Education, institutionally, will no longer be wrongly motivated to serve the interests of the lenders/schools, and will instead have its fiscal interests in alignment with the students. It is also important, here, to hold as many individuals at the Department as possible to account for the many instances of public interest failures that have occurred there (and are occurring as we speak). Unless this sort of housecleaning occurs, the corporate culture that has overtaken the Department will dog any and all efforts at meaningful reform of the bureaucracy, and is best dealt with first and foremost.
Once the reorientation of the Department of Education has been achieved, and Congress has the full story about the schools, their default rates, etc., Congress and ED should dramatically revise the lending limits to more accurately reflect the value of the education being received. This is a power that the Department of Education should have used long ago, but chose not to. They should also kick out the worst of the bad schools (I suspect that at least 25% of the for-profits would be shuddered, and probable more than a few of the non-profits as well). There are surely other actions the Department will decide to take to ensure the schools are delivering a high quality education at a low cost, but these are the two most obvious.
The result will be significantly lower costs, significantly decreased government spending, and hopefully better educated, less financially burdened citizens who will appreciate the federal student loan system, and the government that stands behind it. This is the minimum that must be done at the earliest possible opportunity to stabilize the current lending system, and avoid broad, public rejection of the lending system entirely.
Reduce defense spending. We spend more than the next 17 countries combined, many of them our allies. Go back to Clinton era tax rates for income in excess of $250,000.
Give more Pell grants specially to gifted low-income/middle class students studying math, science, computers, accounting, finance, healthcare. Award grants based on competitive exams. I think you get my point.