This would save young Americans from going into crippling debt, but it would also make a university degree completely unaffordable for most. However, in the age of the Internet, that doesn't mean they couldn't get an education.
Consider the long term impact of this. There are a lot of different ways such a situation could go, for better and for worse.
Why make it illegal? Why not offer only federal loans?
How about:
20 year loan, 4.125% fixed rate 30 year loan, 4.375% fixed rate
No early repayment penalties and maybe interest returned incentives for full repayment return before term at certain benchmarks.
The average debt for a 4-year Bachelor's degree is $34,700. At the end of 20 years the total repayment amount would be $36,131.375, 30 years would be $36,218.125.
Looks good to me.
Why not make it free? At the end of the education cycle the student will get a job and start paying taxes. Isn't that what society needs? Having educated people to do various jobs. Why putting that behind a crazy paywall?
I’d be in favor of that too. My point was to highlight that it’s not the loans themselves that are the problem.
Maybe my understanding of the wording is wrong, but I think you assume a total return of investment of 4.125% and 4.375%. Hence, your total payments correspond to fixed rates of less than 0.5% per year.
For a fixed rate of 4.125% (per year), I calculate a total repayment of $51,016.80, over 20 years.
Sorry, I wasn’t clear. Those aren’t APRs, they are the fixed loan rates. Whatever amount is borrowed is repaid plus 4.125% or 4.375% interest depending on the term selected.
It’s like a reverse bond. The government has established that those rates are a fair return on money they “borrow” from citizens in bonds, it seems fair to give the same terms in the other direction.