This week, President Obama proposed ways to make repaying student loans easier. Comments from Twitter and Facebook are edited for clarity and grammar:

As a grad student, capping monthly loan payments to 10% of income sounds good. However, I'm most concerned about the jobless rate.

— @john_pat_rick

YOUR SAY INTERACTIVE: How do we fix the student debt crisis?

Reduce or eliminate interest instead. I've spent 25 years teaching, and I'm still paying. I'll be paying until I retire!


I think fewer people should go to college.


The president's action is a small but important first step. Hopefully, congressional Republicans will start to take this seriously.


ADVICE FOR COLLEGE GRADS: Leave your best tips

I am a single mother who just graduated from veterinary school. I have $396,000 in loans. Veterinary doctors do not make what human doctors do, although we have similar debt burdens and years of education. I have student loans from before 2007 and therefore do not qualify for the pay-as-you-earn plan.

President Obama's proposal simply extends this existing plan to all of us with high student loan debt relative to our income. It is a welcome relief for someone who is just trying to realize her dream of saving animals' lives while putting food on the table for my family. Thank you, Mr. President!

— Jenni Woods

What is the point of Obama taking executive action that interferes with the agreement between lenders and the people who took out student loans?

Why should the terms of the loans change because Obama says they should?

Contracts are contracts. Well, they used to be.

Steve Yuhas

The proposed changes will just mean that more private banks will get out of the student loan business, and eventually all student loans will end up coming from the government.

Tom Macioszek

If you cap what students are paying per month and charge interest, they will end up paying more in interest because it will take longer to pay off the loan.

Christian Olsen

Letter to the editor:

I used to work for a large manufacturing company near a junior college. Several of the college board members are retired company managers.

The college routinely adjusts its curricula so that its graduates are prepared to step into good-paying, specialty careers or further their education at universities. Its tuition is lower than other junior colleges. Its administrative costs are also lower. Its professors are competent, dedicated, well-paid teachers.

A major step to helping colleges provide more value at less cost is involvement of corporate-type management, not increased federal bureaucracy.

Robert W. Gallant; Midland, Mich.


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