U.S. Senator Talks to Youths About College Loans Via Animated Gifs. Bald Eagles Weep.
Apparently, United States senators are now communicating with the people about complex policy issues via animated gifs in BuzzFeed listicles. Cue piteous weeping for the fate of democracy. And a highly relevant animated gif, obviously.
Today at BuzzFeed Politics, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) attempts to reach out to the kids these days with this gem: "11 Reasons Why Congress Needs To Fix Student Loan Rates Now." He's asking youths to tweeter about how they don't want to pay the government for the use of its money to go to college with the hastag #dontdoublemyrate.
Some of his reasons are misleading, like this one:
1) Because on July 1st, your student loan rates doubled from 3.4% to 6.8%.
The rate increase doesn't apply to current loans. The feature strongly imples that graduates will find themselves owing an additional $1,000/year on average all of the sudden. Instead, the increases apply going forward. Future students will know the new rate and be able to make their own choices about whether to take loans at that rate.
Some of his reasons to keep rates low are actually good reasons to let the rate increase:
8) 41% of you with loans will be delinquent at some point, severely hurting your credit scores.
These low repayment rates are a product of an environment where kids are encouraged to take out loans that can't afford to pay back, due in large part massive federal subsidies. If you make something cheaper, people will consume more of it—whether or not that is a good idea in the long term.
(Or, to put it in the terms that the youths can understand: Cheap loans = Cheetos.)
Oh god, now I'm doing it too. Send help.
Here: Just watch this video instead.
Related: Cracked on 4 stupid ways the government is embracing the Internet.