The Tiffany Generation (A Real-life Julia) [updated]

    President Obama has kicked off his 2012 campaign in earnest and is looking to rebuild the coalition that brought him victory in 2008.  The youth/student vote has been among the first to be courted by the President, sweet-talked with promises of student loan debt relief.  This week, the Obama campaign posted the following on President Obama's Twitter account from one of the objects of the campaign's overtures:

What heroic act had the President performed that elicited such an effusive response?  The source is the campaign's Letter of the Week which is posted on the blog at the campaign website.  It's a letter from Tiffany in Montana who wrote to tell of her dire plight and how the President saved her:

I am in the final weeks of earning my MBA from the University of Montana. When I went back to school two years ago, I had $30,000 in student loans...  In order to fund my graduate school tuition, I had to take out an additional $20,000 in student loans...  I am a single mom to a 6-year-old son...  Over the past few months, I was beginning to dread finishing school because I had absolutely no idea how I was going to repay my loans at over $500 a month. These payments would have made things so absolutely tight for us that I didn't know how we were going to live from month to month. 

So how did Tiffany find herself in this dilemma?  Here's the full opening paragraph from her letter  [emphasis added]:

I am in the final weeks of earning my MBA from the University of Montana. When I went back to school two years ago, I had $30,000 in student loans. At the time, my employer was reimbursing me for my tuition in graduate school—however, another job opportunity came up and I could not pass it up. My new position is with a nonprofit organization and therefore the option of tuition reimbursement is not available (understandably). In order to fund my graduate school tuition, I had to take out an additional $20,000 in student loans.

Tiffany & Co.

At least $20,000 of Tiffany's debt is due to the fact that she left a job that was paying her tuition to take another job that she could "not pass... up."  Tiffany states in her letter "I love my new job," but perhaps in retrospect, the additional $20,000 in debt might have given the MBA student second thoughts.  But not to worry.  Tiffany learned that President Obama had ridden to the rescue with an Executive Order: "The new “Pay As You Earn” proposal will allow about 1.6 million students the ability to cap their loan payments at 10 percent [of their discretionary income] starting next year, and the plan will forgive the balance of their debt after 20 years of payments."  These changes were slated to take place in 2014 anyway (current levels are 15% and 25 years,) but the President accelerated the timetable by two years.  So what does this mean for Tiffany?

[I]t looks as if my payments are only going to be $175 a month. The substantial savings will make it possible for me to buy a house and for us to live like a normal, middle-class American family!

To recap: Tiffany left a job that was paying her tuition to take another job which could not offer that benefit.  This led to an increase of two-thirds in her student debt.  She then began to "dread finishing school" because the looming $500+ per month payments were going to make "things so absolutely tight for [her] that [she] didn't know how [she and her 6 year old] were going to live from month to month."  Now, after a $325/month reduction in her payment, she has had "a huge weight lifted off [her] shoulders" and will even be able to "buy a house"!    And she "owe[s] it all to President Obama."  Miraculously, as we learn from the White House press release, the changes in the student loan program "carry no additional cost to taxpayers."  No wonder Tiffany can barely contain her adulation.  She makes it clear she's ready to go steady with Obama-Biden 2012: "I can tell you right now that there has never been any doubt as to who I will be voting for in November: Obama-Biden 2012 all the way!"
    The government-as-savior tone of the letter is disturbing enough, but that the campaign chose this as the Letter of the Week speaks volumes.  This Pollyanna form of governance has gained such wide appeal that the lack of personal responsibility and the dependence on public largess reflected in Tiffany's letter is unabashedly trumpeted as an American success story.  If the Obama campaign is successful, more and more young Americans will follow Tiffany's lead and give their hearts (and votes) to the President and his vision for America.  Letter of the Week? Sadly, it might be the Letter of a Generation.

Note:  An earlier version of this post misidentified the source of Tiffany's letter as the White House website rather than the Obama 2012 campaign website.