There is a story in the Register today about creating a "Generation Iowa Commission" to explore ways to keep young people in our state. This is the idea of Rep. Elesha Gayman, 28, D-Davenport.
One idea they mention is that we need first-time homebuyers perks for young people. I don't know about other people my age, but when I bought my first house, I DID get perks. I was able to get a lower interest rate and have a 100% financed loan.
They also say in a round-about way that students should get help with student loans. They talk about a "forgiveness" program for students looking for careers considered a "shortage" in Iowa. First of all, I guess I would prefer the Legislature spend more time trying to find ways to actually keep businesses in Iowa instead of thinking of ways to retain young people. There needs to be jobs here for the students to want to stay here. Second of all, student loans are low interest, you can take an eternity to pay them off, and you can get the payments deferred. I guess if I had to pick a type of loan to pay on, a student loan doesn't sound so bad. How about they just do something about the price of tuition, then the loans wouldn't have to be so high?? And by the way, who will categorize careers as being in a "shortage"? I'm sure that will be a very fair process.....???
Life is full of choices. Those choices sometimes come with a price tag. We choose to go to college, knowing there could be debt involved. Then, we look for a career to pay off that debt, but we needed the college degree to get the career (not speaking for everyone here). Then we choose to stack on all the other debt of houses, cars, and whatever else we seem to need to survive. It's our debt, and we should be responsible for it. That's part of learning and growing up.
What about older students too? They seem to be targeting younger Iowans, but when I was in college, there were many older students in my classes. We're not worried about keeping them around the state?
Yes, we need to retain young (and old) people here in the state. But start by looking at the business environment and keeping jobs here for all of us. Although, if the past few weeks is any indication about what the Legislature is doing to retain people in the state---this committee is a lost cause because they are going to drive businesses to neighboring states, in turn taking the jobs with them.
Ok, so a little long-winded for my first post. I'll *try* to make the next one shorter! Have a great night and be safe.
RA
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I couldn't agree more. Government only owes us the opportunity to be successful, not the means to do so. Rather than looking at additional programs to attract and retain younger folks, what we've got now at the state level is a legislature intent on repealing Right to Work. Such repeal is probably the biggest disincentive to new development that they could devise. Fortunately though, we do have legislators that recognize this and are, so far, successful in their efforts to squash this.
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