ThinkProgress, the blog of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, is out with a new report tonight from a Paul Ryan town hall event in Wisconsin: "Paul Ryan Tells Student He Should Work Three Jobs To Pay For College, Not Use Pell Grants."
The headline makes two claims (which are repeated in the story): (1) Ryan told the student to work three jobs, (2) Ryan told the student not to use Pell grants. Both claims are false.
Here's ThinkProgress quoting the student and Ryan:
LOWE: I come from a very middle-class family and under President Obama, I get $5,500 per year to pay for school, which doesn’t come close to covering all of the funding, but it helps ease the burden. Under your plan, you cut it by 15 percent. I was just curious why you would cut a grant that goes directly to the middle- and lower-class people that need it the most.
RYAN: ‘Cause Pell Grants have become unsustainable. It’s all borrowed money…Look, I worked three jobs to pay off my student loans after college. I didn’t get grants, I got loans, and we need to have a system of viable student loans to be able to do this.
neptunechimney wrote: RYAN: ‘Cause Pell Grants have become unsustainable. It’s all borrowed money…Look, I worked three jobs to pay off my student loans after college. I didn’t get grants, I got loans, and we need to have a system of viable student loans to be able to do this.
You missed a more important lie; Do you really think Ryan worked 3 jobs (At the same time it seems we are meant to believe)? Maybe 3 jobs TOTAL after college.
Ryan's father died when Paul was only 16. Using the Social Security survivors benefits he received until his 18th birthday, he paid for his education at Miami University in Ohio, where he completed a bachelor's degree in economics and political science in 1992.
