A couple weeks ago I created a hypothetical college student, Greg L. To recap: He’s not a 4.00 GPA kind of guy, but he tries. He plans to start his freshman year in the fall and he is more than a little overwhelmed by the financial aid process. Greg has heard the rhetoric, generalizations, and misrepresentations about financial aid reps at universities so he’s concerned he might be misled by the reps. He has no idea the biggest threat to his financial aid is coming from the people voted into office to represent him. With the swarm of Presidential candidates buzzing around and building hives of sound bites, poor Greg L. had better take a close look at what the candidates are really saying.

Let’s take John Edwards as an example. He is promising a system where students can borrow directly from the government. You know, like the system we already have that isn’t as efficient or as cost-effective as the FFELP, but he’s going to give it a catchier name. Oh, and he’s going to eliminate subsidized loans to private banks. I’m sure he’s going to do that with a nice catchy slogan too.

Well Edwards can’t say that without another member of the herd braying so Barack Obama steps up and says he can solve the financial aid problems by eliminating subsidized loans to private banks and making that money available to students. The one-upmanship begins!

I’m not an expert in Presidential elections so I’m not sure. When can I place my vote for most bone-headed idea? Will the Electoral College be involved?

Here’s the problem, well, one of the problems – both Obama and Edwards want to eliminate subsidized loans in order to help students. Either they don’t understand what a subsidized loan is or they are banking voters don’t. When a student receives a subsidized federal loan it doesn’t mean they don’t have to pay it back. It means the government will pay the interest while the student is still in school. Basically, Greg L.’s subsidized loans won’t start ticking until he graduates. When all his loans are placed together he will have to pay back lower interest overall because part of his loans, the subsidized part, will have no accrued interest. Under their plans, poor Greg will start owing interest on all his loans the moment he gets the check.

But Obama and Edwards just want to keep those evil private banks from all that free government money, right? Well, no. The banks use those subsidies to give refunds, lower interest rates, and other incentives back to students. Oh those evil bankers! How dare they make lending more affordable!

Luckily Greg L. is doing his own research instead of eating whatever the media feeds him, calling his Senators and Representatives to find out where they stand on student financial aid, and then he will be voting.

We are opposed to the proposed student loan legislation and middle-class families should be too! The government is taking money out of YOUR POCKET.

It only takes one minute to make a difference: call your senators, send your senators an e-mail, download a letter to fax to your senators, become part of our petition and help your friends find out the truth about the proposed student loan legislation.