How about all the US citizens going across the border to Canada or Mexico for the same drug at half the price? Or US citizens going over to India for medical procedures and the price of room, board, round trip ticket, plus the operation is STILL less than if the US citizen had stayed in the US? That and they get treated like kings in India compared to here.

I am by no means saying that we shouldn't have a private plan. I just want a CHOICE to choose between private and public. You're not wanting that choice. Lets let the two ideas compete and the better idea win. Private enterprise is supposed to be more efficient, cheaper, and innovative. Well, let them PROVE it!

Not a mod, but, please stay on topic everyone

I know this is old, but I just came across it.

I think you are the one who needs the tip on how to debate an issue.
The federal government has no interest whatsoever in making a profit from student loans.

I fall under the category of liberal and you, not me, have little knowledge of what you speak of. In fact, you are so incredibly wrong I wonder if you just came up with your own theory and posted it.

First of all, Republican members of Congress in 1975 wanted to offer tax credits for tuition instead of increasing the amount of aid. Democrats were the ones who responded, realizing that this was completely counter intuitive to subsidizing education, and came up with the current form of student aid. We knew what we were doing then and we know what we're doing now.

Competition when applying for student loans is very limited. Most schools have agreements with certain lenders (for example: Ross has an agreement with Sallie Mae). Also, Congress, not the banks themselves, determine interest rates. However, those banks, if they so choose, may offer incentives to borrowers that will reduce their interests rates. This is usually not done to be competitive, but to save costs for the bank (i.e. they will reduce your loan by 0.25% if you agree to receive your statements online instead of via paper mail - this saves the bank a lot of money, they're not genuinely altruistic).

Secondly, the Reagan administration instituted the 'loan origination fee' (he was a Republican by the way).

Student interest rates used to be variable and tied to T-bills prior to July 1, 2006. I, for example, have a loan with one of these rates: 2.23%. However, Republicans, specifically George W Bush, put the US into an unnecessary and ridiculous amount of debt and had to figure out a way to pay for it. Their solution: increase student loan rates - it was called the College Access and Opportunities Act. My next loan was disbursed at a rate of 6.80% as a result of this Act and that rate is fixed - it will not go down. Bush introduced subsequent legislation that slowly decreases the interest rate on new loans (i.e. each year the rate on NEW loans goes down, but old ones - like mine - stay at 6.8%) until they reach ~3.45% - still considerably higher than the 2006 rate.

President Obama is seeking to cut out the banks in the middle and the loans will be directly from the federal government - which has no shareholders to please. They (and by 'they' I mean 'we') will no longer have to pay the banks to issue student loans. This will save the taxpayers (you and I) billions of dollars. The government has no interest in moving loans to the direct-loan department so they can wildly charge 14% on a student loan because they're in this to destroy competition.

A tip for when you try to debate an issue: understand, then criticize.

Didn't I just read all of this in wikipedia?

please note that I agree to some extent, eliminating the middle man may be a good thing. However, remember that you will have to repay all these loans, and hopefully you did research into the respective repayment schedules of the loans you took out. you think the big government will really care about extended deferments that some students may need (whether it be shaky economy, unable to get a job, etc)? of course, you and i cannot really say whether or not this is true yet, but I believe that the government would cater moreso to the typical 4-yr college students' loan and not have a solid graduate loan program that won't have a variety of repayment schedules such as exists today.

offtopic: indeed, under the bush administration, the country went into debt. this is what happens in war-time. now contrast to obama's debt, where he bailed out failing companies and idiots that didn't do their research before buying a house. frankly, I'd much rather go in debt for war-time expenditures.

i like your tip, but here's one back: learn what is actually being argued and what the other side agrees on first before providing your statement. as i said, i vary from your opinion mainly in the repayment schedules, not the elimination of the middle-man, although doing so will lead to a decrease in flexibility of repayment.

Occam: I actually did try to find that info on wikipedia, but couldn't find what I was looking for. It would have made things a lot easier though.

Narc:
* I read the 'off topic' comment, I'm choosing not to respond. This isn't a political forum (I recognize that I may have started it in the first place). However, to stay on topic, I'm only responding about the loans (we can have the other debate via PM if you want).

I haven't read the new bill in its entirety and I don't have the motivation to do it now (I don't have a mini on Monday and it's 4th of July). So, I don't know the repayment schedule well enough to really say much about it.
However, I did find something else that I don't think is tied in with this bill (I could be wrong). But, it said something about repayments being reorganized where graduates will pay based off of how much they make and not how much they owe (to help people with big debt and little salaries not go broke). If so, this will let graduates worry less about the actual repayment schedule (although they'll probably end up paying waayyyy more in the end). For us, however, this hurts because residents will have to pay ~500/mo (which is a lot on a resident's salary) - we're the one area that gets hurt instead of helped.
I think it's good for the gov't to administer the loans - if senators look like they're screwing students, it's good ammo for the challenger and they might not get re-elected. The banks, on the other hand, make up excuses for why they need to raise rates. If the gov't can take charge of the loans AND come up with a reasonable repayment schedule, I think it will work better in the end. I guess we'll see what happens. I'll post more once I read more about it.

Happy 4th and good luck on Monday for those of you taking the mini.

Wait...they already set the wonderful 6.8 & 8.5% rates for our loans! ... that's a higher more than my credit card rate (not a special deal)!
I don't like the government running things either, but maybe it'd be better getting the middle man out. If taxpayers are footing the bill to run a loan program at least let the tax payers (US!) not pay the profits for the banks that are loaning us "our" own money!

There is no real differences between the lenders maybe a 1/2 or 1/4% here or there.... still paying the interest and the 3% govt fee
The lenders don't provide any real difference... just who gets to profit.