Capitol Hill has been at the center of the student loan debate with the newly elected Congress vowing to cut interest rates in half. Well, they just did — the House passed this legislation with overwhelming support, but doubters claim it does little to solve more serious problems with college funding. While supporters say it’s a meaningful step in the right direction, some argue that the focus should be on more grants for low-income students (who might not otherwise get to college in the first place).
What do you think? Read up and weigh in.
I was really glad to see these comments after reading the article. I did not really take in that this is just for federal loans. Unfortunately this will not help my daughter with her mounting school loan debt.
About the requested "do not mail" list, you can get the info here.
Next they should pass legislation banning consolidation companies from sending mail stamped: "final notice" and "time sensitive information about your student loan." Or, make a "do not mail" list.
When was the last time the government passed something that actually was as good as it sounded at first glance in the press? I really like it when I hear talk about raising taxes, that way, once we graduate, we will have less money at the end of the day to put toward paying off our ever increasing school debt, never mind the everyday stuff like food . . . has anyone studied the long term effects of Ramen consumption? :-/
I was super excited about this until I learned that it does not even apply to graduate students.
I agree with Dave. How is this going to encourage more people to go to school. (undergrad or grad?) Of course you would save some money during repayment, but this seems like a trivial issue to attack when congress could be doing other things to encourage higher education.
This new legislation is mostly just political posturing. The key fact that everyone should know is that this only affects subsidized loans from the government. I am in professional school and subsidized loans make up only 1/3 of all of my loans. The most subsidized loans that a student can get in a year is 8500. So if a student takes out $30,000 in loans $8,500 of that loan will get the lower interest rate but the bulk of it will not. However, you must remember that already the interest on subsidized loans does not even start accruing until the student is out of school. By no means will this bill be the difference between any student going or not going to college. With this new bill, the student will have the exact same amount of debt at the end of college that they would have had without this bill. It will provide some financial assistance to students in paying off their loan but will absolutly do nothing for them while they are at college and trying to finance it then.
When does the legislation become law? Does it apply to loans currently held at 6.8% or just future ones? It's good either way...I'll just refinance.