A New Future for American Higher Education, Part 2

Back in January, I wrote a blog post about Obama's goals of mending America's flawed higher education system, starting with lowering the cost of community colleges. Just recently, Obama has revealed next obstacle he hope to conquer: student loans.

This proposal, which he announced in a speech at Georgia Tech on Tuesday, would "reform and streamline income-driven repayment to ensure that program benefits are targeted to the neediest borrowers and to safeguard the program for the future." In other words, the many income-based student loan systems would converged into a modified form of the previously existing "Pay As You Earn" plan. In the end, this process should turn out to be less costly and less daunting for borrowers with lower household incomes. And, as you can see from the graph below, that's something that this system desperately needs.

 Currently, Pay As You Earn "caps payments at 10 percent of discretionary income and allows forgiveness after just 20 years," which is something that won't change as a result of the proposal. What will change is eligibility: Currently, only newer borrowers are eligible for this plan. However, starting in 2015, borrowers who took out loans before October 2007 or stopped borrowing by October 2011 will now be eligible. This change is expected to affect over 5 million people who are currently on less financially-forgiving plans (i.e. the income-based repayment plan, which caps payments at 15% of disposable income. The 5% increase can make an incredible difference in affordability of one is in the low income bracket). 

While there are other aspects to this proposal (which is expected to be implemented in December 2015), the Pay As You Earn eligibility adjustment seems to be the most crucial. If successful, this plan could make a huge difference both on an individual and a national level. Less debt is obviously preferable to the consumer and to the country's economy as a whole. Hopefully, Obama's proposals will reach their full potential, and the 70% of students who have debt after earning their bachelor's degree will not feel the same burden that they do today.

Steps Towards Equality, and All That Jazz

It seems that just in the past year or two, the amount of transgender representation in mainstream media has grown exponentially. Last year it was Amazon's Transparent and this year it was Glee's second transgender character, Coach Beiste, and now, for the first time, TLC will be producing an 11 part reality series surrounding the life of a transgender teen Jazz Jennings, aptly titled All That Jazz. While more and more transgender-themed reality shows (ABC Family's My Transparent Life, Discovery's New Girls on the Block, etc.) are airing with each passing month, All That Jazz offers a more unique perspective. It shows the transgender journey in first-person while also showing Jennings' traversal the infamously difficult teen years. And with Jennings already having an amazing reputation as a teen author and activist, the possibilities for this show to break boundaries that even others have failed to are unlimited. But as Nancy Daniels, General Manager of TLC, stated, "Jazz may be known as an author and activist, but she’s first and foremost a teenage girl with a big, brave heart, living a remarkable life."

Looking at the bigger picture, this boost in transgender media prevalence points to good things for the television industry as a whole. As we've discussed in class, TV shows for a long time have been fairly homogenous: all white, all straight, with the occasional gay couple. By breaking the norm and increasing the representation of more members of the LGBTQ+ community (although only transgender for now), networks are allowing for "transgender Americans [to become] ever more visible in pop culture, normalizing the way society views them." Similar to the goals of eliminating the racial TV Tokenism, eliminating LGBTQ+-based TV Tokenism could further help America reach the equality it seems to be striving for. Considering television is often a reflection of the society it's coming from (to a certain extent), seeing progress on the screen would mean progress in the real world, which in the end, is what really needs to happen. If trends like this continue in what appears to be a snowball effect, maybe we will see this change sooner rather than later.
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Jennings' inspirational ad for Clean & Clear:

50 Years Later, How Much Has Changed?

On March 7th, 1965, an estimated 600 brave Americans walked solemnly across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in a march for voting rights that marked the "political and emotional peak of the American Civil Rights Movement".  Now known as 'Bloody Sunday,' this day was a horrifying example of police brutality - clubs, tear gas, hand-to-hand combat, and more was used to physically beat down the marchers until they were forced to turn around. But mentally, they were undeterred. They came back even stronger two days later, on what is now called 'Turn Around Tuesday,' and again on March 21st, when they were finally able to finish their march to Montgomery. The determination of the marchers gave "courage to millions," and their actions will forever be seen as some of the most remarkable in American history.

Flash forward 50 years, and we wonder, how much has changed? 

Peaceful Protests: Selma 1965 vs Ferguson 2014

On Saturday, President Obama visited Selma to commemorate the sacrifices the marchers made for the Civil Rights movement, and in his speech, he pointed out that "Right now, in 2015, 50 years after Selma, there are laws across this country designed to make it harder for people to vote. As we speak, more of such laws are being proposed." Not only is it true that more voting restrictions have been placed, but we seem to be seeing police brutality to this day that is eerily reminiscent of that in 1965.

Police brutality: Selma 1965 vs Ferguson 2014

It is indescribably unfortunate that despite the sacrifices of those involved in the Civil Rights movement all those years ago, things like this are still going on today. And while strides have been made in the fight for racial equality in America, "This nation's long racial history still casts its long shadow upon us. We know the march is not yet over, the race is not yet won" (Obama in Selma, March 7th). As proven by yet another shooting of an unarmed black teen two days ago and the whitewashed Oscars two weeks ago, Obama is absolutely correct in saying that "the race is not yet won." It seems that right now America is in its own, modern form of 'Bloody Sunday.' But, hopefully soon, justice can be found for Trayvon, Michael, Eric, and the countless others who have died for the crime of being black in America. Hopefully soon, we will be able to overcome years of systemic racism and march all the way to Montgomery, and equality.