Quote:
Originally Posted by GeekyPenguin
To me, it's appealing that the Obamas understand firsthand how much student loans suck. Between my boyfriend and I, we'll have six figures - we both have college and law school loans. The real kicker is that we both went to law school for free and we still have over $100,000 in debt.  I feel like Obama is going to understand this a little more than Bill and Hillary, who never really seemed to have issues paying off any loans they had from law school. |
When Bill and Hillary graduated from Yale, there was a system where everyone from their class who had taken out loans put them in a common pool, and paid back based on their income. As Hillary says in her book, it was great for them because they were public servants/working for the people right out of school (and yes, law professor at a state school is a public servant to me), but the people who went to big firms and stayed basically subsidized their law educations.
Also, we can't forget that the Clintons' Yale educations were possibly 10-25% of the cost of the Obamas' Harvard ones.
Whether or not the candidate knows the pain of student loans isn't that important to me...people of all socioeconomic backgrounds take them out, and some people pay them off right away, and others stretch out the payments to subsidize their lifestyles. One of our close family friends is a doctor, and 30 years out of med school, she buys a new car and boat every year, but guess what? She's still rocking out the loans (and makes smaller payments than most non-doctors I know).
Threaded Mode
