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Students, faculty host demonstration to oppose student loan debt
Waterford junior Tom Jackson, left, and Petoskey freshman Traven Michaels hold their signs during the student loan debt demonstration Thursday in front of the Bovee UC. (Adam Niemi/Staff Photographer)
Students and faculty at Central Michigan University showed opposition against rising student loan debt on campus Thursday.
The demonstration took place outside the main entrance of the Bovee University Center against a scheduled rise in interest rates on federally subsidized student loans. On July 1, the rate is set to double from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent, according to CNN.
“This isn’t just inflation. This isn’t just higher cost of living,” said demonstration organizer Andy Blom, a philosophy and religion faculty member. “This is a result of the decisions made by public officials at the state and federal level and also the effect on university administrators who continue to let budgets grow because they know it’s funded by debt.”
Blom said he invited students in his classes to join the demonstration, wearing white shirts with their personal student debt written on them.
The debt written on Blom’s shirt was just under $30,000.
“I’ve encouraged students to come down and show their student debt and raise awareness,” Blom said.
Some demonstrators also stood near Preston Street to catch the attention of people driving by. Some honked.
Blom also organized the 99 percent Central movement, as part of a national opposition against the 1 percent of people in the U.S. who hold much of the nation’s wealth. A flyer he distributed said students begin paying student debt after graduating, and monthly payments average to about $338 a month for the first 10 years.
Blom said the national student debt is about to reach $1 trillion.
“It could be the next debt bubble that could drive the economy further into recession,” Blom said. “It affects the overall economy. There’s all this money not being spent in the economy because it’s being paid back to student loan debt.”
Blom said the issue has been on his mind for a long time.
“Personally, I’ve been concerned about rising student debt for many years,” Blom said. “I didn’t need to carry as much debt when I was going through undergrad.”
Allie Young, a senior from Utica, was one of the students in Blom’s class invited and encouraged to join the demonstration. She said students now might not realize how student loan debt will affect their lives.
“I don’t think (students) realize our lives are going to be on hold because we won’t be able to afford starting a family and having a house and a car,” Young said. “They won’t be able to get married and have a house because they’ll be paying student loans.”
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6 Comments
You students are at fault!!!!
You want big spending on multiculturalism.
You want $60,000 for speakers like Jane Goodell.
You want big salaries for professors who teach 2 classes per semester, couple hours of office time—-10 hours a week work and summers off and 4 weeks vacation during the school year. We could cut the faculty in half and cut costs!
You want to spend money on booze all the time, drugs, birth control.
Do I need to go on?
Somebody needs to pay for all this waste!!!! Somebody has to pay!!!!
That’s why you are in debt!!!!!
When I was at CMU, it was $12 an hour and we had low-cost, dedicated faculty, no unions,etc. No big spending on liberal speakers.
You students are your worst enemies. We aren’t writing off your debt!!!! You are all in for a huge shock when you’re in the real world and away from the multicultural fantasy world liberal professors and staff from CMU!!!
P.S.—Make sure you students work hard in a few years so you can subsidize my social security payments as I sit by the water sipping margaritas and listening to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity on the radio!
Typical of a right wing extremest RethugliCON; no facts, all opinion. You are entitled to your opinion MIchmediaperson, but back it up with true facts not your fantasies about students and faculty.
If your RethugliCON buddies have their way you will have no Social Security so you can sip on your margaritas and sit and listen to your fascist Limbaugh and Hannity.
You sound like a white racist extremist to me with all your sniping at multi-culturalism.
Yesterday was a testament for the ability for individuals from every different path in life to get together for a single cause. We are the 99 %! Farewell, Central.
Wow for someone who talks about someone not using facts, you sure didn’t give any facts either.
Northern, that’s a completely ridiculous response…way to have an intelligent discussion.
Tuition goes up every time more financial aid is made available by the government. When you try to over regulate and subsidize supply and demand you don’t have a true market. Michmedia has a good point. Students demand luxuries that increase costs rather than demand an education that’s more focused on their needs and goals.
I will keep this simple. Someone tell me what research that was done by CMU professors was worth adding $14,000 to the average loan debt of $28,000 of the average CMU student??????????????????????????
We could dump half the faculty plus unnecessary staff positions and cut tuition in half and cut loans in half!!!! Tell me what research was worth the money!!!