Who Can Benefit From the Student Loan Forgiveness Act (HR 4170)?

Student loan debt is currently costing Americans nearly one TRILLION dollars. A new bill is in the works that could help provide some relief for those of us carrying around the student loan monkey on our backs. The bill, introduced by Hansen Clark (D) on March 8th, is called H.R. 4170 - The Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012.

Student loan forgiveness, sounds great and all but what does it mean for us?

Reduced payments for those experiencing economic hardship - Basically, the Student Loan Forgiveness Act means that for those struggling in today's economy, you can potentially have your federal student loan payment reduced to 10% of your monthly income and provide forgiveness after 10 years of payment (referred to as the 10/10 plan). If you are currently drowning in student loan debt and are somewhere around the poverty line, you better hope this bill is passed.
Reduced interest rates for new borrowers - H.R. 4170 will make new federal loans more affordable to prospective students. The bill would set the interest rate cap on federal loans to 3.4 percent, which is half of the current rate at 6.8. In my opinion, for those who want to go to school but have no way of affording it, this would be great. For the country as a whole, not so much. I believe that this will add to the already dangerously inflated "education bubble" that our country is experiencing. In theory, this would eventually make it even HARDER to get a job after graduation due to an increased graduate:job ratio.
Cuts the payments public service employees need to make - Those working in public service would have their required payments cut in half (from 120 to 60) that they need to make before their debt is forgiven. If you are someone working as a teacher, nurse, military member, police/firefighter, then this is DEFINITELY something to look forward to should this bill pass.
Converts private loans to Federal loans - Lastly, HR4170 (if passed) will allow borrowers to consolidate their private loans into a federal loan. This is only available for certain borrowers, but it will give those who took out private loans to get the benefits/protections included with Federal loans.

I don't believe this has much of a chance of being passed, and seems to me like a congressman fluffing up his resume for elections. For individuals, this would be great as I'm all for taking advantage of the government's misjudgment. Economically, I don't feel this is a step in the right direction. In the last 50 years or so there has been a HUGE boom in people going to college. For us young adults, we have been told all our lives that college was the key to success. This may have been true back in the day when a college graduate was a rarity. Now that basically everyone is graduating college (due to the mindset that you NEED a degree,) a college degree is becoming more and more meaningless.

If you've ever taken an economics class, you'll know that lowering the barrier to entry in an industry will increase the competition. In this case, lowering the barrier to entry for college (by lowering interest rates and giving people the idea that they wont have to even pay back everything they borrow) will further increase college students, which will increase college graduates, which will increase the COMPETITION between college graduates, which will further DECREASE the salaries that companies will pay college graduates.

Don't get me wrong, if you're drowning in student debt as well as the poor economy, this bill is GREAT NEWS for you if passed and you should do everything you can to help it pass. Looking at it from a long-term perspective, if you are the CEO of a corporation who dreams of eventually paying college graduated skilled workers nearly the same wage as you'd pay unskilled workers, this bill is also great news!