Governor: $300m available for student loans

7.75% on a student loan? it's no surprise that this country is following behind the rest of the world. it's become too expensive to pursue a higher education.

hmmm, ill bet there will be an increase in the "minority" student population.....

oh wait, you all dont like the truth, scratch that last statement.

If you were a higher education institution, what might you do with this information? Might you raise prices commensurately? This gives pols good press, but does it FIX the problem or exacerbate it?

this is great news!
now we can keep getting deeper and deeper in debt, and still have no idea what tese kids are going to do once they get out of college ands till have no jobs and are about 12 to 15 trillion in debt.
Heck enjoy it while it lasts, kids, 20 million families wil be homeless so get what you can while you can.
Remember, that degree in dead languages, or art history , or sociology, will look great hung up on the wall of your cubicle for whichever 12 dollar an hour telemarketing job you get. if your lucky.

how much is going to illegals? 2.75 million? gotta love the communist-wealth of massachusetts!

Are these loans available only to Mass state residents?

$300 million available for low rate student loans through MEFA peaked my interest. Alas, as I continued to read I find out the rate is 7.75% aljhough below the Federal Plus loan rate to call them "low-rate" is quite the misnomer. The Globe neglected to mention the 3% origination fee or "points" one must pay for the privlage of borrowing money for kids to attend college. With interest rates at historic lows why is that parents and students today are saddled with rates approaching 8% while those who attended college say 5-10 years ago are paying less than 4% in some instances? Something is a miss here. How about stimulus money to offset the rate or provide outright grants. After all not everyone attneds state schools and will those funds use to lower what was to be a $1500 fee increase.

7.75% in today's interest rate environment is considered low???? Doesn't sound like a bargain to me!!

What about those of us that need to pay for a K-12 education because our schools are so bad? I have $90,000 in private parent K-12 loans for my child, all because the public school failed him in a big way. I would like to get 7.75% instead I'm over 9%

Good try! The 7.75% fixed rate is only for parents that choose immediate repayment. Oh and by the way the APR is 8.43%. If you defer payment, which most parents want to do, your rate will be 8.89% and the APR 8.66%-9.52%. The 99$ monthly payments per $10,000 is based on a 15 year term versus the 10 year term for the Federal PLUS loan. Why not use a Federal PLUS loan at a fixed 7.9% or 8.5% and a .25% interest rate reduction with auto payments no matter if you defer or not. better yet stick with a school you can afford! Our state should not be in the business of encouraging Private loan borrowing when we know the Federal loans protect the student and parent much more!

MA

In '06, the MEFA loan was 6.99%. In '07, 6.89%. In '08, MEFA didn't offer these loans at all. Just an FYI.

Not to point the finger at Deval, because he is only the messenger, but why does it seem like everytime he opens his mouth and says "look what I'm doing for you" there's always a catch. 7.75% doesn't look all that appealing, and going by what SJH posted above, there's a few "catches" Deval forgot to mention. He's starting to sound like a used car salesman.

If you think 7.75% is bad... look back to 1988 to 1994 when student loans were 8 & 10% and PLUS loans were 12%.

I pay $20K a year for day care... and can't get a loan or grant to pay for that. Public higher ed is a bargain, even with a $1500 increase.

If you don't like it, don't take it.

I got my loan at 2.38% 6 years ago.......and that was in the height of loaning.....7.75% that just to high.

Illegals cannot get student loans. They do not have a social security number.

And regardless of what some of you say , I would MUCH rather my children have degrees, it DOES matter. The economy won't be like this forever, and as for spending, this is pretty worthwhile. We will not be a superpower for long if we do not have an educated population, and that is just a fact. We will never be able to keep up with China and other countries without an educated population.

Well, if you are sending your kid to college and you don't like the rate, try some other bank.
Get over it.

Breaking News: 7.75% is NOT l;ow interest. 30 YEAR Treasuries are 3.5%...10 year Treasuries are 2.7%...and 2 year CD's are 2.o%.

You'd have to have a Junk Credit Rating to pay 7.75% on a new car loan.
And MEFA , as pointed out offered 6.99% in 2007 and 6.89% in 2008.

SOME DEAL?!

7.75% is a rip off, and will once again drive the wrong behavior (willfull default). How can the rate be that high, when the Fed Funds rate is near zero? It would seem an intermediary between the Fed and the State needs to be controlled or removed.

7.75% is absolutely outrageous....these are college students!! with no jobs!! How is this helping the economy???

Good news to taxpayers, Do-Nothing Patrick is trying to balance the budget on the backs of students.

Wake up and get this guy out of office!

Rather than offer more loans (which are hard to get, don't get me wrong), why not figure out why colleges are raising rates at an alarming rate and stop it?! Do we really want to stifle our country's progress by making education unaffordable?

People can balk at the loans all they want, but if you want a REAL white collar career in your 20's / 30's / 40's then you need to at least earn a masters degree. And if you can't afford to pay out off pocket then mortgaging your education is the only good option.

I know people who bypassed loans and took the slow route (or no route) to finishing college. If they finished college they did so in their late 30's, they struggled needlessly for 15 years, and they missed out on at least $1.5M of income that they could have earned had they just taken out the loans and finished in their early to mid 20's. And who knows what opportunities they lost in their 20's / 30's because they didn't have college degree caliber work.

How much will these loans cost us? The $9 billion stimulus magic money will cost us $24 billion. In other words... loan shark rates. Does that mean the $300 million we don't have will actually cost us $750 million?

What about those of us who will be paying off our loans for years to come? I owe a moderate amount (under $100k, much less than most students coming out of school today) and have estimated that if I pay them off according to schedule (note that there were a few postponements due to job loss/previous Bush recessions) I will be 65 years old when I make the last payment.

More money for student loans only means more debt down the road. Not even remotely a fix, except that perhaps it will give more of our unemployed something to do until the economy picks back up.

Why aren't we doing more for the schools so they don't have to raise their tuitions!

I have 3 MEFA grad loans - they are on 15 year repayment terms. I am drowning in debt. I can't afford both loan repayment & rent and MEFA won't work with me on the repayment. I also have a bar loan and my federal student loans to pay. It feels like I'll never get out of student loan debt, and Massachusetts sure isn't helping me!

The state has $300 million to spare? Jared Jackson is right. Just like housing, making more money available just causes prices to rise, but you don't expect a politician like Cadillac Deval to understand economics. And Maureen: College is not for everyone. It takes different types of people to have a healthy economy. That type of thinking that because college is good for some people, it's good for all people is the kind of mindless unbalanced thinking that got us into this financial crisis. Maybe if some kids opted for a trade or postponed college, the colleges would be forced to lower their tuition and fees.

Do-Nothing Patrick
This is a good name

It's cheaper to buy a house.

I'm paying 2.25% on my federal education loans, because I consolidated in 2005 before rates went up. 7.75% is not a low rate, it's a joke and it's not affordable for college students.

No wonder there is a tuition bubble... people think student loan debt under $100,000 is moderate! With UMass paying many professors over $500,000-
I think there is money to spare? MEFA is pushing private loans and home equity loans to parents and students at a time like this? The state should be encouraging Federal loans first and responsible borrowing. In fact the AG in NY forces lenders to disclose the fact that Federal loans are cheaper and have better terma and conditions. Only in MA!