U.S. Avoids Default

President Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress were able to finally reach an agreement late Thursday night that would end the sixteen day partial shutdown of the U.S. government. The country has been going wild about what would happen if the U.S. defaulted on the national debt, which was what almost happened. A default would be a national catastrophe, with many major businesses failing and throwing the U.S. into a deep depression. This bill does provide the government with a bit of breathing room to figure out how to ease the debt (debt cushion extends through February 7th), but the partial shutdown did much harm. CNN reports that the shutdown took an estimated $24 billion out the economy, money that could have went to healthcare or education, two areas that need funding. This issue is far from resolved, but for the time being us college students can breathe easily knowing that financial aid will still be around.