Many who rail against the costs of higher education and the massive debts that most graduates carry point out that this drives graduates toward high-paying but potentially socially irresponsible jobs, like investment banking or private equity or a hedge fund, or really anything that pays well in this day and age, but is probably slowly gutting our economy.
And jobs like this are in New York, San Francisco and Boston and barely anywhere else, so these increasingly unaffordable cities are your only hope as recent graduate of extinguishing massive student debts, right? Have you considered rural Kansas?
ABC News reports that some localities are offering student loan assistance to young, educated people — all they have to do is move to places that don’t fit the typical Young Urban Professional mold. They’ll have to be Young Rural Professionals, should they choose to move to one of Kansas’ Rural Opportunity Zones — located in 50 different counties in the state; or maybe they’ll be Young Blighted-Urban Professionals, should they move to downtown Niagara Falls, N.Y., an over-redeveloped, but somehow still blighted, neighborhood located right next to the majestic falls for which the town is named. Kansas is offering student loan payment of “up to $15,000″ to college educated people moving to ROZs, reports ABC. That, or up to five years income-tax free. Niagara Falls’ program, by comparison, is more modest.
The class of 2013 from both Niagara University and Niagara County Community College will be the first with the opportunity to apply for the program, which offers up to $7,000 (over the course of two years) for paying down student debt. “To qualify, applicants will have to rent an apartment or buy a home within a designated downtown area,” writes ABC News — you can’t just move anywhere in the city.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com …
