Government Employees Facing Furloughs Struggle to Repay Student Loans
"Joe Hyde thought that getting a job with the Department of Defense was a safe career path. But faced with sequestration and a 20 percent pay cut, he and other federal employees are worried about how they will afford to repay their student loans," reports Kansas City infoZine. "Hyde graduated from the California University of Pennsylvania in 2010 with five student loans totaling $18,000. He moved to California and took a job at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA, as a travel assistant, where he makes $41,000 a year. Hyde calculated it would take 20 years to pay off his debt, making the minimum payments of $227 per month. But with Congress and the president unable to agree on a budget, Hyde and all civilian employees at the school are being furloughed without pay for one day a week beginning in April. Hyde will lose $336 per paycheck. The sequester, the nickname for the budget impasse, will cut $1.2 trillion in federal spending over 10 years, half from defense and half from domestic spending. The cuts will first hit federal employees, many of whom are being furloughed for at least a few days until the end of fiscal year 2013 on Sept. 30. Joe Hyde, a travel assistant with the Department of Defense, will lose 20 percent of his pay for the remainder of this fiscal year as a result of sequestration. He has paid $5,000 of his student loans, but still owes $13,000."
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