How student debt became a focus of the presidential campaign | Inside Higher Ed

How student debt became a focus of the presidential campaign | Inside Higher Ed:

The New Politics of Student Debt

May 3, 2012 - 3:00am

By

Libby A. Nelson

These days, Robert Applebaum is feeling vindicated.

In January 2009, Applebaum, then a 35-year-old lawyer with more than $80,000 in student debt, created a petition calling for student loan forgiveness to stimulate the economy. It was greeted with a few weeks of buzz and plenty of scorn. Then, for more than two years, silence.

Then student loan balances passed $1 trillion, interest rates spent a week as the focus of the nascent 2012 presidential campaign, and suddenly everyone wanted to talk about student debt. Applebaum's solution may be as unrealistic as ever. But even President Obama has now signed onto the underlying thesis: that student debt isn't just a burden for debtors but a drag on the economy. In the de facto first week of the general election campaign, Obama and presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney sparred not over health care

Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/05/03/how-student-debt-became-focus-presidential-campaign#ixzz1to8HOHi5
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