Many people feel that we, as a generation need to stand up and be proactive citizens. We need to stand up for what we believe in whether it is world peace, gay marriage or the right to birth control. One issue I can get on board with is student loans. How many of us are going to be graduating and entering the real world with over $100,000 in student debt. This year the total outstanding student loan debt in America is going to exceed $1 trillion. This is what you call a crisis and it’s about time we start believing we can make a difference.

Representative Hansen Clarke had us in mind when he created The Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012. This beautiful bill would basically create a “10-10 standard” for student loan forgiveness. This means if you commit to make payments of 10% of your discretionary income for ten years, the remainder will be forgiven. For those of you who don’t know, your discretionary income is your total income minus taxes.

Another plus to this is if you have already been paying your loans then your repayment period would be less than ten years. It would also help out future students by promising low interest rates on federal student loans. 

Since this program is for federal loans, existing borrowers can convert their private loans into federal Direct Loans and would then be enrolled into the 10/10 program.  

Graduates would also be rewarded for entering public service professions such as firefighting, teaching or the police force. If you are a med student and wanted to work in an underserved community you would also be rewarded. This could cut your repayment period from ten years to five years. This is huge. 

Besides jumpstarting the economy, saving millions from student debt and promoting higher education this would also create jobs in the long run by increasing consumer demand. 

I’m a little skeptical since this does sound too good to be true. But does anyone else have any better ideas? Students are going to be struggling with loan repayment literally until the day they die (since that is the only way for loans to be forgiven) unless we do something.

http://signon.org/sign/support-the-student-loan?source=s.em.cp&r_by=3655042 Thanks! ">You can sign this petition here. It’s as easy as putting in your name, e-mail address and mailing address. You can then share it through e-mail, Twitter and Facebook. Let’s show them what our generation is made of.