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Student Loan Debt Owed to Federal Government Up 463% Under Obama

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Photo Credit: Ali Meyer/CNSNews.comSince President Barack Obama took office in 2009, the amount of outstanding federal student loan debt owed to the government has skyrocketed, increasing by 463 percent. The balance owed currently stands at $674,580,000,000.00 compared to $119,803,000,000.00, where it stood in January 2009, according to the Financial Management Service’s latest monthly treasury statement.

Direct federal student loan spending began to rise rapidly in fiscal year 2010, when the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act – one of the two laws that make up Obamacare — gave the federal government complete control over federal loans for education, the Direct Student Loan (DL) program. This aspect of HCERA became effective July 1, 2010, when the amount of outstanding loans stood at $178,806,000,000. Since then, the balance has increased by 277 percent.

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Student Homelessness Hits Record High (+video)

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Photo Credit: John Moore/Getty Images The number of homeless students in U.S. public schools is at an all-time high, according to new data.

There were 1.2 million homeless students during the 2011-12 academic year, from preschool all the way through high school. That’s up 10% from last year and 72% from the start of the recession, according to the most recent data available from the National Center for Homeless Education, which is funded by the Department of Education.

Advocacy groups say continuing economic struggles are causing more students to end up homeless, meaning that they live in shelters, motels, or are staying temporarily with someone else because they have nowhere to live.

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Student Destroys 9/11 Memorial Flag Display, Citing US Imperialism

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Photo Credit: Young America's Foundation

Photo Credit: Young America’s Foundation

Protesters at Middlebury College in Vermont uprooted 2,977 flags that were part of a 9/11 memorial display on Wednesday.

The flags symbolize each of the 2,977 people who died in the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001. The College Republicans and Democrats have jointly planted the flags in a field on campus every year for the last decade.

But this year, Ben Kinney — president of the College Republicans — happened to be walking by the display as 5 protesters finished removing the last of the flags and placing them in trash bags.

“At first, I thought the group was comprised of College Democrats helping put the flags away before the rain rolled in, but then I realized what they were doing,” said Kinney in a statement to The Middlebury Campus.

The protesters — at least one of whom was a student — explained that they were “confiscating” the flags in order to take a stand against U.S. imperialism.

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80 Percent of College Students Chipping in for Education

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Photo Credit: APJust as the Great Depression left a lasting mark on the generation who lived through it, the children of the Great Recession may already be shifting their world view about money, judging by a new survey that says about 80 percent of them are shouldering some or all of their college costs.

“I think kids are stepping up and it requires a degree of financial responsibility,” said Linda Descano, the president and CEO of Citi’s Women & Co.

“I think it’s a huge financial wake-up call,” she said. “I think they’re really seeing, they really have to own themselves. They don’t have the security their parents did.They see their grandparents struggling to cover health care. I think they’re realizing those safety nets are no longer there. How are you going to stay relevant? You can’t just go to one place and stay there forever.”

Four out of five college students are now working while going to school, typically 19 hours a week while classes are in session, according to the 2013 College Student Pulse survey conducted by YouGov for Citi and Seventeen Magazine. The survey, released this week, was conducted online in July and considered the views of more than 1,000 college students and high school seniors.

The YouGov findings are in line with a recent study released by SallieMae financial services company that found that parents now pay for about 27 percent of college costs, compared with 37 percent in 2010.

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Students Sign Petition to Legalize 4th Trimester Abortions (+video)

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By Steven Ertelt

Just how pro-abortion are some college students? They were happy to sign a fake petition to legalize abortions in the nonexistent fourth trimester of pregnancy.

The Media Research Center set up the fake petition drive and interviewed students to find out show how solidly they support abortion on demand for any reason throughout pregnancy — and beyond.

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Photo Credit: opposing viewsPlanned Parenthood To Pay Texas $1.4 Million To Settle Fraud Dispute

By Sarah Siskind

Tension has been rising between the Lone Star State and federally funded Planned Parenthood. The Reproductive Health Clinic has agreed to pay the state $1.4 million to settle allegations of fraud, according to a statement from Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott yesterday.

The suit claimed that Planned Parenthood improperly billed the state of Texas for services that were not necessary, not covered by Medicaid or not even rendered — though reproductive services not rendered seems to be precisely at what the state is aiming.

Earlier this month, Texas passed a controversial law despite much publicized opposition that effectively closes all but five of the state’s abortion clinics. The law, among other things, mandates that doctors at these clinics possess hospital-admitting privileges, clinics must be rated as ambulatory surgical centers and requires doctors to personally administer certain medication. Planned Parenthood has threatened to sue. Read more from this story HERE.

Senate Passes Student Loan Plan

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Photo Credit: APA plan to restore lower interest rates on most college loans won Senate approval Wednesday, despite objections from a bloc of Democrats who warned it could ultimately increase the cost of a degree for many students.

The legislation, which is supported by President Obama and is expected to swiftly pass the House, would reinstate a market-based approach for calculating rates, tying them to the 10-year Treasury note. The new rate for undergraduate Stafford loans would be about 3.8% this year, slightly above the rate that expired July 1.

The final vote was 81-18. Sixteen Democrats, joined by Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), voted no.

A market-based system had been in place until 2006, when the rate was fixed at 6.8%. It was later gradually reduced to 3.4%.

Democrats successfully mounted an election-year campaign in 2012 to extend that lower rate for an additional year. As rates were set to return to 6.8% this year, congressional Democrats pushed for another temporary extension. But they found their position weakened by a White House budget plan that supported a return to a market-based plan.

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Student Booted from U.S. College for Favoring English!

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Photo Credit: WNDAn Arizona college is being sued for labeling a student a “bigot” and punishing her with a long-term suspension after she requested that English be used in her nursing studies class so she could learn the subject.

The action was filed against Pima Community College on behalf of student Terri Bennett, who alleged that school officials created a “learning environment [that] was hostile to her as an English-language speaker.”

The complaint alleges that Bennett repeatedly was thwarted in her work listening to lectures, finishing group studies and participating in skills labs, clinicals and other learning activities by fellow students who spoke Spanish, which she did not understand. Study groups and labs in which she participated, an essential part of her nursing training, were being conducted in Spanish.

In response, she asked the college – which operates, ironically, under Arizona’s English-only legal requirement – to help enforce the use of English in her class so she could continue to pursue her educational goals. However, according to the complaint, Bennett was targeted by the school with ridicule, attacks, threats and, eventually, a nine-month suspension.

The group ProEnglish is helping Bennett with legal support.

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Cops Violate Student’s Constitutional Rights at Roadblock, Video Goes Viral

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Photo Credit: Highway Patrol ImagesA video affiliated with the Libertarian Party that involved Rutherford County Sheriff’s Deputy A.J. Ross went viral yesterday on social media sites.

“We’ve gotten worldwide response for this,” said Axl David, communications director for the Libertarian Party of Tennessee, a political party that encourages minimum government limited to following the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

The video depicted a verbal altercation between Chris Kalbaugh, a 21-year-old junior at Middle Tennessee State University, and Ross at a DUI checkpoint Thursday night…

When Kalbaugh continued to challenge Ross’ demands on the basis of “constitutional rights,” Ross ordered him to pull his car over and step out of the vehicle.

“I broke no laws, and I made sure to be respectful the entire time while still exercising my constitutional freedom,” Kalbaugh said. “The officers would not let me leave, but they would not answer if I was being detained.”

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Bill Awaiting Gov. Brown’s Signature Will Allow Boys to Use Girls’ Public School Bathrooms, Locker Rooms (and Vice-Versa)

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Photo Credit: mgrayflickrTransgender students in California would be able to choose which school bathrooms and locker rooms to use and which sport teams to join based on their gender identity under a measure approved this week by the California Legislature.

The proposal now awaits the signature of Gov. Jerry Brown, whose office has declined to comment on whether he will sign it.

The proposal would be the first state law in the nation that specifically requires equal access to public school facilities and activities based on gender identity, though some states have general policies to the same effect, said Shannon Price Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, one of several groups backing the legislation.

But enactment of the measure would “simply mean that California will be catching up with other states that already have enacted regulations based on a general prohibition of gender identity discrimination in schools,” Minter told CNN.

“Our view is that California’s existing law should already require schools to provide transgender students with equal access to facilities and activities, but in practice, many schools are not complying with that requirement and will not do so unless the Legislature provides specific guidance on this issue,” Minter said.

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University Tells Student to Remove Cross Necklace Because it Might Be “Offensive” to Other Students

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

A Sonoma State University student was ordered to remove a cross necklace by a supervisor who thought other students might find it offensive, in a case that prompted even one campus official to speculate that “political correctness got out of hand.”

Audrey Jarvis, 19, a liberal arts major at the northern California university, said she had no choice but to seek a “religious accommodation” in order to wear the cross. Her lawyer said she deserves an apology, and the school seems ready to oblige.

“It’s amazing in this day of diversity and tolerance on university campuses that a university official would engage in this type of obvious religious discrimination,” said Hiram Sasser, an attorney with Liberty Institute, which is representing Jarvis.

Jarvis was working for the university’s Associated Students Productions at a June 27 student orientation fair for incoming freshmen when her supervisor told her to remove the two-inch-long cross necklace, according to Sasser.

Sasser said the supervisor told her that the chancellor had a policy against wearing religious items and further explained “that she could not wear her cross necklace because it might offend others, it might make incoming students feel unwelcome, or it might cause incoming students to feel that ASP was not an organization they should join.”

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