Student Loans Will Own My Soul Part 2

Because what this country needs is more student debt:

As part of the savings to trim the deficits, Congress would scrap a special kind of federal loan for graduate students. So-called subsidized student loans don't charge students any interest on the principal of student loans until six months after students graduated. 

A graduate student who borrows the maximum of $65,500 in subsidized loans would owe $207 a month in interest payments over the course of 10 years. But with a subsidized loan, the government pays that $207 each month the student attends school until six months after graduation...

A graduate student who borrows the maximum of $65,500 in subsidized loans would owe $207 a month in interest payments over the course of 10 years. But with a subsidized loan, the government pays that $207 each month the student attends school until six months after graduation. 

This change would shift some $125 billion in loan volume over to unsubsidized loans and would cost students $18.1 billion over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

At least most of the money saved through the cuts to subsidized student loans will go towards funding Pell Grants, but the cuts will still leave the Pell Grant program short some $1.3 billion dollars.  

It is easy to think that most graduate students study less useful topics, like Buddhist Studies, and therefore the increases are the price that a person pays for a shot at their academic dreams.  But the debt-ceiling deal affects medical students, law students, business students, future social workers, education students, engineers, and on and on.  While some of the top jobs in those fields pay a handsome sum that negates the rise in education costs, many of them do not.  Teachers are already facing massive cuts in pay and benefits due to the recession, social workers have never lived a glamorous life, and a public defender's salary is atrociously low given the amount of legal case work their assigned.  

My generation is already drowning in student debt, which will affect our standard of living and our future economic prospects.  But hey, at least the wealthiest among us were saved from a tax cut.