Wall Street protestors' take on student loans, tuition welcomed by Indian students

New York, November 12: For many Indian students worried by the increasing cost of higher education in the US and rising student loans, the Occupy Wall Street movement has come to symbolize a glimmer of hope.

With many student bodies across the country having joined hands with the protestors in recent weeks, expressing solidarity with their concerns regarding crippling student loans and rising unemployment, Indian students are now hoping that the way may soon be paved for rationalizing the burden of higher education.

One of the main demands of the nearly fifty day old protest, with its headquarters at Zucotti Park, New York, is that the government intervene in higher education and possibly try to restructure student loans in a way that makes it easier for students to pay them off fairly and equitably.

If we discount students of Indian ancestry who are either US citizens or permanent residents, almost all the Indian students in the US are on international student visas, which effectively shuts off any possibility of federal loans.

Other student loan providers such as Sallie Mae, Citi and Chase have stringent screening procedures when it comes to loans for international students.

'I approached Sallie Mae for a student loan but was asked to come up with a co-signor who is either a US citizen or a permanent resident. Since I do not have any relatives living in the US, I had to pass the loan. I am already neck-deep in a student loan that I took from a bank in India.

Now, my college has hiked up the fees for the current semester and I am at the deep end. It is good that the Wall Street protests are finally turning the spotlight on this key issue,' says Anand Vemuri, a third year graduate student at Penn State University.

In the US, student loan debt totals nearly $1 trillion and on an average, a college student owes almost $25,000 in debts. Much of this is due to the steep rise in tuition, which has increased nearly 400 percent in the last three decades.

At most Ivy League schools, tuition is well over $50,000, higher than the US median household income of $49, 445. In 2010 alone, for the first time ever, unemployment among college graduates rose above four percent.

Though Indian students are yet to actively participate in the Occupy Colleges movement, an offshoot of the Occupy Wall Street movement that is targeted at protesting high tuition costs, they are hoping that the intense debate created by the protestors may ultimately work for them too.

Though the F1 student visa allows students to work part time for 20 hours a week under the Curricular Practical Training program while they are still in school, the time thus worked is calculated under the one year they have under the Optional Practical Training program once they graduate.

With rising unemployment, many Indian students say finding even such low-wage employment has become exceedingly difficult.

Saieeda Hamid, who graduated last year from Rutgers University, New Jersey, has since returned to her home town Hyderabad, unable to find employment under OPT and support herself.

She took a huge student loan from State Bank of India which will take her at least ten more years to pay off. 'If I had found a job in the US, I could pay it off much earlier. Not only have they made it difficult for us to get jobs, those who created the present economic mess also ensured that there are no easy ways for us to pay off our debts. Our whole future has now been mortgaged,' she rues.

'As protestors, we are targeting Wall Street for helping fuel this latest debt crisis by indulging in pure greed. But it is also imperative that students make their voices felt by seeking to cut down on exorbitant tuition costs. We are determined to provide them this platform,' says Clara Richardson, one of the spokespersons of the Occupy Colleges forum.

Indian students are hoping that the global attention that the Wall Street protests are receiving may in some way alleviate their own financial burden.