( - promoted by Dean Barker)
Jeanne Shaheen visited the University of New Hampshire this afternoon, sitting down with about a dozen UNH students to talk about the cost of going to college.
UNH isn't cheap. The university estimates total in-state costs at $23,000 a year. Out-of-state students pay more than $35,000 annually. Family help, scholarships and part-time jobs rarely cover the tab. According to a financial aide officer who was at the meeting today, the average UNH graduate leaves campus owing more than $20,000 in student loans.
The students told Gov. Shaheen how it was getting harder and harder to find subsidized loans, how federal Pell grants were shrinking, how rising energy costs were blowing their tight budgets out of balance.
One estimated she'd be $35,000 in debt by graduation in May. Another said he had $7 in the bank to tide him over until he gets the next check for his part-time job.
The saddest aspect of the discussion was listening to the students talk about how their post-college plans were being shaped by their debt.
Several said they wanted to enter public service. They wanted to teach or work for a non-profit human service agency or work in politics. But they wondered how they could afford to with their loans coming due next fall.
One spoke of friends working in jobs of no particular social benefit with companies they didn't like just to pay off their loans.
No one ever said we should all get to do what we want all the time - paying the bills is part of life as a grown-up - but it was sad to see a group of bright and concerned young people wonder whether they'd have to choose between making a difference and making a living.
Gov. Shaheen said she had several ideas that would help make college more affordable: reforming the student loan system to reduce interest rates - one student said she was paying 9.1% on her college tuition loan this semester - and increase availability, increasing Pell grants, allowing students who enter national or community service to have some or all of their loans forgiven.
All of this, however, depended on change in Washington.
With a Democrat in the White House and working majorities in the House and Senate, she said, we can end the war in Iraq and bring both our troops and our billions of dollars home. We can work to restore the economy, begin to move toward energy independence and affordable health care and try to make higher education affordable again.
None of this will be easy, and electing Jeanne Shaheen to the Senate this fall won't be enough to make it happen.
But it will be a start in the right direction.
It's easy to get caught up in the hand-to-hand combat of political campaigns. Let's not forget, however, the purpose of all this tumult and shouting.
The winners get to make the rules we all play by.
And I bet the rules Jeanne Shaheen, Carol Shea-Porter, Paul Hodes, a Democratic president and working majorities in Congress come up with will be far fairer than anything the Republicans propose.
Let's remember that's why we play this game.
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