Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, a top official in the Obama administration, spent Thursday morning prepping a blog post filled with .gif files for BuzzFeed.
Duncan's post, "Top 9 Things Every College Freshman Needs To Know," admits it's unlikely young people will "listen to a government official." It includes such tips as "Beer Is Not A Major Food Group," "Make The Most Of Your Free Time" and "Keep An Open Mind And Make New Friends." (Full disclosure: Duncan also blogs on The Huffington Post, and wrote something for us earlier this week.)
The post reminds readers that those student loans will have to be repaid, but Duncan forgets to mention the Income Based Repayment or Pay As Your Earn programs, designed to help graduates avoid excessive payments on their student loans. This comes just a day after another federal agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, sought to highlight how many public employees are eligible for these programs and loan forgiveness.
Duncan links out to a blog post on the Education Department's website titled "5 Things to Consider When Taking Out Student Loans," which also fails to mention either program.
HuffPost reporter Shahien Nasiripour asked on Twitter why they didn't mention the programs available to help student loan borrowers, and got a response from Cameron Brenchley, director of digital strategy for the Education Department:
@nasiripour @arneduncan @usedgov @BuzzFeed Always next time - particularly around graduation! cc: @Joy_Resmovits
— Cameron Brenchley (@chbrenchley) August 29, 2013
We'll see, Brenchley. We'll see.