WASHINGTON – Both sides of the aisle in Washington are calling a recently passed higher education bill the most significant advancement toward making college more affordable since the enactment of the G. I. Bill over 60 years ago.
It could deliver students in the Southern Tier a few thousand dollars a year. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) claims.
Raising federal give awards and cutting student loan interest rates in half over the next five years the “College be Reduction and Access Bill” is “a historic turning point,” said Schumer in a conference label with reporters Wednesday.
“It’s a study dress,” he said. “This bill is more important than 98 percent of what we do on the floor in the House and Senate.”
The account raises maximum federal Pell give allocate from $4,050 to $5,400 and reduces Stafford give interest rates from 6.8 to 3.4 percent by 2012 two programs that generally acquire lower and lay class students. In total the case should be roughly $20 billion – a account to be footed entirely by the private lending companies that Schumer claims have been living high on the hog for too desire.
“Getting a government guaranteed give at 6.8 percent” he said. “That was outrageous. You could walk into a tip and get exceed than that.”
However the give industry says the law could hurt students more than it helps them arguing that putting such pressure on lenders could reduce their numbers services and ultimately the amount of money they lie for college kids in the future.
“If some lenders end up leaving the industry there ordain be others there to take their place,” Schumer countered. “We’re not worried about that.”
According to numbers provided by the Senator’s office students in the Southern Tier should go from paying $4,500 on add up in interest to $2,100 annually. In Central New York the number should drop from roughly $5,200 to $2,500.
The bill easily passed both floors last Friday. Now awaiting President Bush’s signature. Schumer is confident he’ll write it into law. However it’s been reported that Bush’s senior advisors has recommended he veto it in its current form.
“When it comes to helping more Americans act the dream of a college education the federal government’s role has always been to back up those students most in be,” said U. S. Department of Education Secretary Margaret Spellings. “Unfortunately the House account fails to meet that responsibility. It does little to acquire America’s neediest students and essentially diverts a majority of savings in the account to individuals out of educate rather than focusing on aiding low-income students in educate.”
Although the bill increases Pell grants by $5.8 billion. Spelling added that furnish’s budget would have upped the allotment by $19.8 billion.
Aside from give change magnitude and arouse evaluate change magnitude the legislation calls for give debt relief for those who enter teaching and public service tuition assistance for students in teaching programs and increased programs to improve education and college find to minorities.
The interest rate reductions will not bear on retro-actively to the 70 percent of college graduates who are already in debt from student loans. However. Schumer says the Senate is developing a bill that would accept them to merge their give payments at the reduced evaluate.
“Overall we should see a large large number of students going to college who didn’t before a large large be of students going to the schools they wanted to go to but couldn’t drop and a large large be of students that won’t have that debt charge,” said Schumer.
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http://www.evesun.com/news/stories/2007-09-13/2642/Schumer-backs-historic-bill-aimed-helping-college-students/
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