LETTER: Chime in on student debt

To the Telegram:

This is just something I think is important, and I would like some feedback from fellow students. You may share this with any one you like; the more feedback the better.

Join us at Facebook page, UWS Students Helping Students, from noon until 3 p.m. May 9 in Room 204.

YU Legislators will attend the issue of the high cost of student debt. The question is why are student loans being repackaged and used to create great wealth on Wall Street while funding, grants and services are being cut while cost increases? Included in the discussion:

• UW System resident undergraduate tuition changes in tuition source.

• Annual operating budget and fee schedule documents for the Wisconsin university system 1970-71 $430, 1980-81 $832, 1990-91 $1,882 2000-01 $3,290, 2009-10 $7,296, 2011-12 $8,592.

While this trend is estimated to reach $10,000 to 12,000 by 2014 each semester, and no financial aid will be issued other than student loans because of the demand by financial services for new loans to be used by Wall Street (tranches investment repackage) resold for high profits and bonuses.

New increases in student loan interest rate coming next semester, preceded by cuts in grants and funding to students and institutions the crash will come in 2014 if we do not act now.

Attending an institution of higher education has historically been a partnership between society, private and government institutions that make us all part of the future. It is a contract between the culture of one generation to the next. It is in the form of understanding we will provide the resources to provide for the next generation — compare 1970 to 2012 cost of tuition.

The next generation’s contract will read only as debt. The new graduate must demand higher wages to cover this debt, placing the entire burden on small business. Large corporations receive an unfair misappropriated subsidies from which small business are disqualified.

Right now on Wall Street student loans are being repackaged (tranches or CDO’s) with mixed financial capital paper and resold for millions in profit and bonuses, creating the next bubble to burst with catastrophic results. The problem needs to be fixed before it comes crashing down on the taxpayer as a new financial bailout that will cost several trillion dollars.

We must turn this around by fully funding education, cutting the cost of tuition and forgiveness of 80 percent of current student debt. We can do this now or we can ignore the systemic risk that comes with capitalism as financial crises and pay trillions in bailouts to financial intuitions as was done in 2008.

This can be paid by recouping a small portion of the Wall Street profits made from student debt.

Students: We need to hear your story. Post your story, ask a question or voice your opinion on Facebook. Your comments will help control future cost and cuts in education.

And invite anyone — students, instructors, staff, administration, friends, family, media, community leaders, or elected officials. This is not a political event; it is for students of UWS to express their concerns, ideas, struggles in a way to show support for one another.

You are not alone.

Klayton Longstreet,

University of Wisconsin-Superior

Tags: opinion, letters