MISSOULIAN EDITORIAL: Legislature should listen to student’s loan repayment idea

Leave it to a college student to come up with an innovative way to repay student loans.

Mitch Everts, a student at the University of Montana, has done the research and run the numbers. He calculates that the average annual salary of a bachelors degree graduate is $45,000, and the average student loan debt is $30,000. Currently, the average debt repayment period falls between 12 and 30 years. However, if graduates could withhold 10 percent of that average income, they could cut the repayment time down to about eight years.

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People’s Bill

To learn more about the People’s Bill, a student loan repayment option proposed by University of Montana student Mitch Everts, visit http://www.thepeoplesbill.com.

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With those numbers in hand, Everts has been actively pushing a proposal he drafted in September. He’s calling it the People’s Bill. The measure would allow Montana college students to choose to withhold an additional percentage of their income taxes – between 3 and 10 percent – to repay their loans.

http://missoulian.com/news/opinion/editorial/missoulian-editorial-legislature-should-listen-to-student-s-loan-repayment/article_ba3ebe3e-d11c-5202-a697-48b02eb950e8.html