Education Secretary Arne Duncan Duncan, Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council Melody Barnes and Raj Date, Special Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFBP) told reporters today’s White House proposal is casting a wide net to help more debt holders.

A fact sheet provided to reporters indicates the White House expects college loan holders to save “hundreds” of dollars per month through this relief package. During the call, Duncan said a nurse earning $45,000 a year with $60,000 in loans can expect a $451 reduction in monthly payments.

A summary of the college payment relief programs:

· Starting in January of next year, allow individuals to consolidate their Federal Direct loans with subsidized loans. The White House says this move can tack off half a percentage point in the interest debtors pay. Barnes told reporters submitting payments to two different loan services increases the risk of default.

· Expanding the IBR program through a pay as you earn service that caps the discretionary income considered to 10 percent that will also go into effect January of next year. While the president had Congress approve a similar IBR measure that lowers the percentage of income considered, that rule won’t go into effect until 2014. White House numbers project the move will help 1.6 million student borrowers. Today’s proposal also excuses all unpaid debt after 20 years of successful minimum payments, rather than the 25 years originally legislated. Discretionary income is calculated by subtracting150 percent of the poverty line from a person’s adjusted gross income–that dollar figure at the end of one’s tax return.

· The CFBP, less than 100 days old an a product of last year’s big bank regulation law known as Dodd-Frank, is in the finishing stages of a simple Financial Aid Shopping Sheet, which would de-jargon the language on college award letter and scholarship documents. “The form would also make the total costs — and risks — of the student loans clear before they enroll by outlining their total estimated student loan debt, monthly loan payments after graduation and additional costs not covered by federal aid,” indicates a White House press release.

Tackling student debt is part of the administration’s larger effort to circumvent policy changes that need Congressional approval. “We simply can’t wait for Congressional Republicans to act,” said Duncan.

While Congress in 2009 approved a measure called Income Based Repayment, which went into effect last year, only 450,000 college loan holders have signed on out of the over 30 million Americans juggling higher education debt. That program caps the amount college debt holders pay on federally-backed loans to 15 percent of their discretionary income.

Perhaps coincidentally, College Board released a report today showing college tuition and fees rose this year by more than 8 percent from last year for public four- and two-year colleges. Still, more students are entering college, the report noted, as an additional 2.8 million students enrolled in school between 2007 and 2010.

Higher education has been under a microscope as job prospects are low for many and additional education is sought after. The swell of new students is forcing campuses to find new revenue streams to keep up with services, often resulting in seeking out students who pay higher tuition. The trend is most visible at public universities that have set their sights on out-of-state candidates who pay considerably more than local students — at times three times as much.

Taking into account a student’s ability to weather the financial burden of higher education is an increasingly ethical dilemma. Student default rates, as determined by the two-year cohort rate calculated by the U.S. Department of Education, is at a 12-year high, with 8.8 percent of graduates not paying their college loans for 270 days or more. Using a more comprehensive metric, a report issued (PDF) by the New America Foundation found that 15 percent of graduates defaulted, while 21 percent were delinquent on their payments.

But despite the costs and risks of falling behind in payments, arguments college is still worth it abound.

Individuals possessing a college-equivalent degree can expect to earn 80 percent more than a person with a high school degree. In an earlier study from researchers at Georgetown University, a college degree holder can expect to make $1.4 million more than one witha high school degree. And owning a college degree goes a long way to having a job: while the unemployment rate in this country is 9.1 percent, only 4.3 percent of college degree holders are jobless.

In its findings, the study notes the value of a full college degree has risen since 1999, with lifetime income increasing from 75 percent to now 84 percent more than what a high school graduate would make. That uptick translates into $2.3 million to the high school graduate’s $1.3 million in expected lifetime income.

The more expensive degree doesn’t necessarily translate into a higher salary. In the press release announcing (PDF) the study, Anthony P. Carnevale, the Center’s director and co-author of the report, said, “major and occupation matter just as much as degree level. For example, 28 percent of people with an Associate’s degree make at least as much as the average Bachelor’s degree holder—mostly due to occupational choice.”

In a previous report (PDF), the Center estimated nearly two-thirds of all U.S. jobs will require some amount of college education. Currently, four-in-ten adults possess a college degree.

Here’s a breakdown of expected average earnings by education from the Carnevale study:

• A high school dropout can expect to earn $973,000 over a lifetime.

• Someone with a high school diploma can expect to earn $1.3 million over a lifetime.

• A worker with some college but no degree earns $1.5 million over a lifetime.

• An Associate’s degree-holder earns $1.7 million over a lifetime.

• A worker with a Bachelor’s degree will earn $2.3 million over a lifetime.

• A Master’s degree-holder earns $2.7 million over a lifetime.

• A Doctoral degree-holder earns $3.3 million over a lifetime.

• A Professional degree-holder earns $3.6 million over a lifetime.

Naturally, where you work matters, and in many instances a worker can out-earn a more educated counterpart.

From the report:

• 31% of high school dropouts earn more than the median earnings of workers with high school diplomas.

• 37% of those with a high school diploma make more than the median earnings of workers with some college/no degree.

• 42% of people with some college/no degree earn more than the median earnings of workers with an associate’s degree.

• 28% of people with an Associate’s degree make more than the median of workers with a Bachelor’s degree.

• 40% of people with a Bachelor’s degree earn more than the median of workers with a Master’s degree.

• 36% of people with a Master’s degree make more than the median of workers with a Doctoral degree.

• 37% of people with a Doctoral degree make more than the median of workers with a Professional degree.

The authors provide this takeaway:

Today, careers follow occupational paths. These occupations— engineering or accounting for example— can be found in any number of industries (you can be an accountant for a bakery or for an airplane manufacturer). As a result, today’s workers are more attached to the occupations they fill than to the industries in which they work.

At the least, in economic downturns, owning a college degree is an indicator of evenhaving a job. In the July labor report issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, workers over the age of 25 with a college degree had an unemployment rate of 4.3 percent, while graduates with just a high school degree contended with a jobless rate of 9.3 percent.

But despite federally-backed loan programs, many Americans are priced out of a college education.

From College Board:

• Public four-year colleges charge, on average, $7,605 per year in tuition and fees for in-state students. The average surcharge for full-time out-of-state students at these institutions is $11,990.
• Private nonprofit four-year colleges charge, on average, $27,293 per year in tuition and fees.
• Public two-year colleges charge, on average, $2,713 per year in tuition and fees.

But value doesn’t mean a good education nor does it portend an ability to pay off debts, as TAI wrote in this post last week.

In terms of debt accumulated versus number of degrees issued, a report from Education Sector figured the ratio at public four-year universities was $16,247 and $21,827 for private non-profit schools, while students of for-profit universities were saddled with $43,383 in debt for every degree.

In 2008, the high school graduation rate was 70 percent; the six-year college graduation rate nationwide was 55 percent in 2009. Depending on who you believe, the graduation rate among community college students is between 20 and 25 percent, while the completion rate among for-profit college students ranges between 19 to 49 percent.

Clinton’s remarks, via Ben Smith:

[I]t is crucial that we clarify what we mean when we talk about democracy. Democracy means not only elections to choose leaders, but also active citizens; a free press; an independent judiciary and legislature; and transparent and responsive institutions that are accountable to all citizens and protect their rights equally and fairly. In democracies, respecting rights isn’t a choice leaders make day-by-day, it is the reason they govern. Democracies protect and respect citizens every day, not just on Election Day. And democracies demonstrate their greatness not by insisting they are perfect, but by using their institutions and their principles to make themselves—and their union— “more perfect,” just as our country continues to do after 233 years.

At the same time, human development also must be part of our human rights agenda. Because basic levels of well-being—food, shelter, health, and education —and of public common goods—environmental sustainability, protection against pandemic disease, provisions for refugees—are necessary for people to exercise their rights. And because human development and democracy are mutually reinforcing. Democratic governments are not likely to survive long if their citizens do not have the basic necessities of life. The desperation caused by poverty and disease often leads to violence that further imperils rights and threatens the stability of governments. Democracies that deliver on rights, opportunities, and development for their people are stable, strong, and most likely to enable people to live up to their potential.

Human rights, democracy, and development are not three separate goals with three separate agendas: that view doesn’t reflect the reality we face. To make a real and long-term difference in people’s lives we have to tackle all three simultaneously with a commitment that is smart, strategic, determined, and long-term.

Notice as well the development focus on human rights. After all, liberty in the absence of prosperity and justice typically leads to demagoguery, which is no liberty at all.

Levin’s remarks were made this morning at a conference at the Washington College of Law at American University addressing the ethical responsibilities of OLC lawyers and how they should be held accountable for authorizing abusive conduct that now appears to have been illegal. “Any government employee is appropriately subject to investigation of their conduct while they’re serving in government,” said Levin, who is now a partner at the law firm White & Case.

Later in the discussion, Levin also said that a truth commission that would investigate and reveal how the lawyers in his office reached their conclusions “would be useful.” Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) has proposed such a commission, but so far apparently does not have majority support for the idea in Congress. Levin spoke on a panel of experts that included Georgetown Law Professor David Luban, Alliance for Justice president Nan Aron, and Newsweek columnist Stuart Taylor.

“Maybe the [Office of Professional Responsibility] report will give some of the factual basis that will allow people to make judgments about that,” said Levin, referring to the ethics report of the OLC lawyers’ work conducted by a division of the Justice Department which has yet to be released. The report was drafted over several years and completed by the end of the Bush administration. “But I would agree if you could have a serious look at this it would be very valuable.”

Upon completion, the OPR report was sent to its subjects — including former OLC lawyers John Yoo, Jay Bybee and Stephen Bradbury, for their review and comment — and is still under Justice Department and possibly CIA review. It reportedly analyzes the lawyers’ communications with senior government officials and is highly critical of their conduct.

Will the administration be more swayed by an author of books about fighting terrorism than by its own deputy attorney general at the Office of Legal Counsel, Marty Lederman? The choice is stark, and if NPR’s Ari Shapiro is correct that Wittes is planning to reveal proposed legislation on the matter today, and that he has the ear of the Obama administration, then it may ultimately come down to whose view the administration credits more.

Wittes has no formal legal training and has proposed a potentially unconstitutional system of indefinite detention of terror suspects without trial; Lederman is an esteemed constitutional law professor at Georgetown University with eight years of prior experience advising the executive branch from the Justice Department — and he has previously expressed serious concerns about preventive detention.

As Spencer pointed out, before his appointment to the Office of Legal Counsel in the Obama administration, Lederman, in an online colloquy with Wittes, specifically denounced the idea of preventive detention based on the president’s determination of who is dangerous.

“’Dangerousness,’ as such — particularly dangerousness as evidenced primarily by one’s ‘deeply held beliefs’ — is not a constitutionally valid ground, standing alone, to indefinitely incarcerate persons without the protections of a criminal trial,” he wrote in Opinio Juris. “Indeed, even if the dangerousness is demonstrated by past criminal conduct, that is not a permissible ground for noncriminal detention.” He continued that the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that deterrence of dangerous people “is a function ‘properly … of criminal law, not civil commitment.’”

Wittes may have a very “pragmatic approach to fighting terrorism,” as NPR describes it. (He’s also in the past proposed a system of “national security courts” that would suspend some of the usual criminal justice procedures — which sounds a lot like the new Obama military commissions proposal.) But it’s worth recalling that we’re in this situation to begin with because the Bush administration, dominated by non-lawyers, had insufficient respect for constitutional parameters.

This situation may be partly due to the lack of leadership in the OLC: Republicans have stalled the confirmation of Dawn Johnsen, President Obama’s nominee to head the office, for months now. That may be giving outsiders more say in the administration’s plans than they would ordinarily have.

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As I reported earlier, the 34-year-old computer consultant of Syrian descent was apprehended by U.S. authorities in 2002 while he was changing planes at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, on his way home to Canada after visiting relatives in Tunisia.

After a harsh interrogation without access to counsel in New York, he was flown to Syria against his will, where he was kept in a tiny underground prison cell and tortured until he eventually “confessed” to training for terrorism in Afghanistan; in fact, he’d never even been there.

For those with a strong stomach, here’s the federal district court’s description of Arar’s early days in Syrian detention, which he claims was coordinated with US authorities:

During his first twelve days in Syrian detention, Arar was interrogated for eighteen hours per day and was physically and psychologically tortured. He was beaten on his palms, hips and lower back with a two-inch-thick electric cable. His captors also used their fists to beat him
on his stomach, face and back of his neck. He was subjected to excruciating pain and pleaded with his captors to stop, but they would not. He was placed in a room where he could hear the screams of other detainees being tortured and was told that he, too, would be placed in a
spine-breaking [*11] “chair,” hung upside down in a “tire” for beatings and subjected to electric shocks. To lessen his exposure to the torture, Arar falsely confessed, among other things, to having trained with terrorists in Afghanistan, even though he had never been to Afghanistan
and had never been involved in terrorist activity.

Arar was eventually deemed innocent and returned home to Canada in 2003, where the Canadian government confirmed that he’d done nothing wrong and apologized for its role in his arrest.

With the help of the Center for Constitutional Rights and Georgetown law professor David Cole, in 2004 Arar sued American officials in a U.S. federal court for sending him to Syria to be tortured.  But his case was dismissed on the grounds that an investigation might reveal state secrets and harm national security.  The court also ruled that, as a foreigner deported by immigration authorities, he had no right to challenge his treatment by the United States.

Although a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit affirmed the district court’s ruling, holding that Arar has no right to sue federal officials no matter what was done to him, the full court  of appeals in August made the highly unusual decision to re-hear the case.  All 12 active judges of the court are scheduled to hear the arguments from both sides at 3 p.m. in New York.  The argument will stream live on C-Span.org.

For more on the Arar case and the US government’s program of extraordinary rendition, check out Jane Mayer’s excellent piece on the subject in the New Yorker.

“If there’s a Georgetown cocktail party person who, quote, calls himself a conservative, and doesn’t like her, good luck, good luck.”

Is this a thinly-veiled shot at conservative columnist George Will?

Will reportedly told an audience of Senate aides yesterday that Palin is “obviously not qualified to be president” — and previously referred to McCain as “unpresidential” after saying he would fire the Securities and Exchange Commission chairman, Christopher Cox.

Never mind that Will is one of the most respected of a dwindling number of true classical conservatives left in this country — McCain appears to be attacking the messenger, rather than addressing the concerns raised by the growing crowd of Palin’s conservative critics. Namely, that Palin’s recent interview performances indicate she has a severe lack of facility with the big issues and is generally unprepared for the big leagues.

So, was McCain attacking Will?

You be the judge.