DEMOCRAT CONGRESS STILL PROTECTING STUDENT LOAN ABUSES

It looks like a rich company has got a lot of congresscritters in its pocket

With lots of fanfare, Congress recently made student loans slightly less expensive for future students. But they completely ignored the biggest abuses in the student loan program, abuses that make student loans the most lucrative to collect and the most onerous debts to carry. The process can be so bad for borrowers that Harvard Professor Elizabeth Warren told the Wall Street Journal, "student loan debt collectors have power that would make a mobster envious." And no one makes the mobsters greener than Al Lord and his Student Loan Marketing Corporation, the largest student loan provider in the country. It's also known as Sallie Mae - one of the most profitable companies in America.

As the founder of the largest student loan borrower group in America, Student Loan Justice recently began our nationwide tour to reform student loan abuses by visiting the offices of Congressman David Wu in Portland. Wu will be among a handful of congressional leaders who will reform student loans.

The problem with student loans began ten years ago when Congress privatized student loans, largely through a strange arrangement with Sallie Mae. Sallie Mae assumed all the rewards, but the federal government took all the risks. In addition to legislating draconian collection powers, outlawing bankruptcy protection and imposing huge penalties for delinquent debt, Sallie Mae convinced Congress to outlaw re-financing and other forms of competition for student loans. With these powers and protection from competition, Sallie Mae's stock price increased nearly 2000 percent in 10 years, with its robust profits coming from collecting penalties on defaulted student loans. Meanwhile, the borrowers suffer.

Student Loan Justice (www.studentloanjustice.org) has received thousands of stories from citizens whose lives have been shattered by their student loans. These stories are from decent citizens who have been forced to live off the grid, had their livelihoods taken away, been forced to postpone marriage and children. Some have gone so far as fleeing the country and committing suicide.

Such borrowers quickly find themselves unable to function in society, and are faced with a decision to either continue the paralysis and live in fear, or begin making payments on a massively inflated amount - often three or four times more than what they originally borrowed. That is why Student Loan Justice is working to:

1. Pass legislation which allows borrowers who have been in default for 5 years or more to repay what the government paid for their loan (which includes principal plus interest), and get on with their lives.

2. Give borrowers the right to refinance their debt with lenders willing to give better terms.

3. Ban "school as lender" programs, where universities steer students to certain lenders due to financial incentives. In the business world, that is called kickbacks.

4. Return standard consumer protections to student loans.

5. Make student loan repayments tax deductible

Almost all of these steps could be accomplished with Senator Hillary Clinton's Student Borrower Bill of Rights. The present situation is not what Congress intended when it created the student loan program, and Congress must undo the program if we are ever to make student loans a stepping stone for middle class opportunity - not a cash cow for Sallie Mae. As one of the most influential members of the Education Committee, Congressman Wu is in a unique and important position to restore sanity and equity to the student loan program. That is what we need him to do.

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More academic corruption in Australia

This sort of thing -- lowering standards to preserve fee-paying enrolments -- is an old story in Australia. Protesters such as the guy below are the saviours of Australian academic standards and should be praised and encouraged, not harried. The shortsightedness of the administrators who are endeavouring to destroy the asset they depend on -- the reputation of their university -- is incredible

A leading Queensland academic quit his university post in disgust after being told to pass fee-paying overseas students he had intended to fail. The academic, who asked not to be named, said he refused to pass the students attending a Queensland university last year, even though he was put under "enormous pressure" from senior academic staff. "I was told, in no uncertain terms, to pass some particular students, who in my opinion, had not met the standards required – not by a long shot," he said. "To pass the subject, there were several components: an exam, an essay and a practical assessment, none of which these students had passed. "They had not even come close to passing. "If it were a mark out of 100, I would have given them a five and yet I was told to somehow get them through."

His claims came after a recent report by Monash University demographer Bob Birrell in Melbourne which found more than one-third of overseas uni students were graduating with a lower standard of English than what was required. But Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop challenged the findings and has asked anyone with evidence of favouritism towards full fee-paying students to come forward. "This is a very serious allegation and I want to see the evidence: which universities, which professors, which courses," Ms Bishop said.

The academic said he believed a cash-for-degrees culture was growing at all Queensland tertiary institutions, due to Federal Government budget cuts. "What happened to me is by no means an isolated incident," he said. "I have spoken to many other academics and they have had similar experiences."

National Tertiary Education Union Queensland secretary Margaret Lee supported the academic's claims. "The National Tertiary Union is certainly aware members are under enormous pressure," she said. "There is anecdotal evidence that some members have felt pressured, either directly or indirectly, to ensure high pass rates for their international students. "They are told that a fall in international student numbers would pose income difficulties for their university." Ms Lee said that, on average, Queensland universities received 18 per cent of their income from international student fees.

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Australia: Federal call for a return to quality education

Article below by Federal education minister Julie Bishop

There is no doubt that education plays a key role in the economic and social fabric of any society. Early childhood education and our primary schools should provide fundamental skills, such as literacy and numeracy. Students at secondary school should develop more advanced but equally valuable skills, such as greater initiative and analytical abilities.

Vocational education should provide skills and knowledge that are specifically required for various occupations. And our universities not only equip graduates with skills for the professions and industry but also create new knowledge to underpin our economic prosperity and international competitiveness. But our education system is not only about personal attainment. It is also a driver of economic growth directly related to the quality of the education students receive.

Quality is the key determinant in education's contribution to economic growth. The determinants of economic growth, for example, were analysed in a study of 100 countries, including Australia, from 1960 to 1995 by Harvard researcher Robert J. Barro. His research found that the quality of education was far more important than quantity when looking at the impact on economic growth.

At the heart of this debate about quality is the decline in academic standards in our school systems. This is the new frontier of the education debate. The quality of our teachers is critical. After parents, teachers are the most important determinant in educational outcomes for school students. Our teachers are a precious national resource. They should be respected and rewarded for their significant role in educating our children.

But like other professionals they deserve career incentives. That is why I am developing options for greater consistency in professional development for teachers as well as calling on the states to provide higher salaries, with an element of performance or merit-based pay and greater workplace flexibility. For example, we should be rewarding teachers who work in our most disadvantaged schools and achieve outstanding results, or specialist teachers such as in science or maths. But let us focus on what our schools are being asked to teach our students.

I am concerned that students, teachers and parents are being let down as many aspects of school education get hijacked by teachers unions and state education bureaucrats. This has led to the role of teachers being redefined from someone who teaches a syllabus to someone who facilitates; many children lacking basic numeracy and literacy skills; parents lacking meaningful feedback about the performance of their child and their school. Instead of learning basic facts in subjects such as history, children are being taught according to an ideological agenda. And the values and discipline parents teach at home are not being reinforced at school.

The problem is the growing number of students at the tail end who don't have the fundamental skills to even hold down a job. A growing number of remedial English and maths classes are being offered by the nation's universities and other tertiary institutions to bring first year, and in some cases PhD, students up to appropriate English standards. Employer groups have reported that school and university graduates lack generic skills such as grammar. In terms of literacy and numeracy, recent reports of statistics, such as those released in my home state of Western Australia, reveal that about one in five students who completed Year 7 last year are functionally illiterate, that is, failing to meet national benchmark standards in reading, writing and spelling.

We are already making our funding for the states and territories conditional on a number of areas of reform: plain-English report cards and making more school performance information publicly available. With commonwealth funding of $1.8 billion going directly to the states for literacy and numeracy standards, we have established national benchmarks in literacy and numeracy in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9. The first national assessments will be carried out next year.

Literacy and numeracy skills are not a "tired old cliche" as Queensland Education Minister Rod Welford said recently. These skills are the fundamental, the essential, the enduring foundations for an educated society. Yet the study of English, for example, is not compulsory in the senior secondary years in Queensland. When the issue of compulsory teaching of English is raised, Welford defends this by saying that most senior students take English anyway.

What he doesn't reveal is the level of English those students take. Students can elect to study standard English, English extension (literature) or an English communication subject, or none at all. Standard English is the subject we would expect every student to take, and which would meet community expectations. English literature is more advanced, but English communication is the soft option. It is a disturbing fact that between 1992 and 2005, the number of students studying standard English or English literature dropped from 93 per cent to 80 per cent of Year 12 students, while the number of students studying English communication rose from 6per cent to almost 20 per cent of Year 12 English students. The number of Year 12 students studying soft option English in Queensland went from 2376 to 8494 a year, almost tripling in a decade and a half.

The teaching of English is essential in primary and secondary schools and must include not only reading and comprehension but spelling, punctuation and grammar. On leaving school students must have the ability to not only express themselves orally but also to write comprehensible prose. I note that in some states SMS messaging is part of a tertiary entrance English course. Apart from the fact students know more about the language of texting than their teachers, it will not help a student write a CV for a job or a letter to customers.

We see similar trends in science and mathematics where students are choosing to study, if at all, the soft options of these important subjects. Research shows that the study of science and mathematics and the acquisition of these skills is fundamental to the ongoing economic prosperity of a nation. We must capture the imagination of students on the wonders of science and mathematics early, and ensure that they have the skills to continue to study in these areas in Years 11 and 12. Otherwise they will not go on to university and take up careers based on science or mathematics.

Now is the time for the states and territories to put aside their parochial differences. With an increasingly mobile work force, we must put the interests of parents and students first, for their interests coincide with the national interest.

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"

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