Bill Tackles Student Loan Debt in Attempt to Keep Young Iowans in Iowa

I have written that one reason Iowa's young people are leaving the state is because of higher student loan debt when they have graduated college. Here is what I wrote back in September...

However, young people decide if they want to stay in Iowa when they graduate from college and today our young people are finding themselves graduating with a ton of debt from student loans from tuition nearly doubling since 2000.

Let's say a young Iowan graduates with a degree in education and has $50,000 of debt from student loans. Will that person decide to get a job in Iowa and make $30,000 a year or will they go to Texas and make over $40,000. How about a nurse who graduates with $50,000 of student loan debt. They can choose to stay in Iowa and make $30,000 a year or go to Minneapolis or Kansas City and make $45,000. A pharmacy graduate with student loan debt can stay in Iowa and make $90,000 or head elsewhere and earn well over $100,000.

These people may like Iowa, but that extra money sure would help pay off the amount of student loan debt they have accumalated. What choice would you make?

There is a bill being debated that addressess this issue. From the Des Moines Register...

One way Iowa can keep young people in the state is for employers who hire them to pay back all or part of their student loans in exchange for a tax credit from the state, one professor says.

College graduates could see their loan debt - up to $25,000 - erased within three years under House File 730, a bill supported by Democrats and Republicans in the Iowa Legislature.

Employers would have a competitive edge over those in neighboring states with an unusual way to recruit new graduates for hard-to-fill or competitive jobs, said University of Iowa business professor Jay Christensen-Szalanski, who came up with the idea.