Miller Urges Graduates to Consolidate Loans Before July 1

Miller Urges Graduates to Consolidate Loans Before July 1

WASHINGTON, DC -- Representative George Miller (D-CA) attended a celebration for recent college graduates on Capitol Hill this morning, where he urged all graduates to consolidate their student loans before July 1 to take advantage of today's historically-low fixed interest rates. On July 1, these interest rates are set to rise by almost two percentage points. Miller also called on Congress to make college more affordable for students and their families.

Miller issued the following statement at the event.

***

Good morning and thank you for joining us at today's graduation party for student borrowers. I want to thank the U.S. Student Association, the Consumer Federation of America, and the State PIRGs for their hard work to make college more affordable.

We're here today to send an important message to graduates with student loan debt: you have under four weeks left to consolidate your loans at a historically-low interest rate. This is an important opportunity for you to reduce the cost of your college or graduate school education, so don't miss it!

We're also here today to say that Congress has a responsibility to find other ways to help students and families finance a higher education. Education is the key to ensuring the continued vibrancy of our democracy and success of our economy.

Particularly now, in an increasingly cutthroat global economy, America needs to make higher education a higher priority if it is going to compete with other nations. We simply cannot afford to allow college to remain unaffordable for millions of American families.

Yet today millions of American students and families every year struggle to cover college costs, even after scholarships, loans, and work-study. Hundreds of thousands of students in recent years have actually been priced out of a college education altogether, choosing instead to go straight to work from high school. For those students who do go on to college, increasing numbers of them are falling further into debt to finance their college education.

The typical student graduates with almost $20,000 in federal loan debt, while almost 40 percent of all student borrowers graduate with unmanageable debt levels.

To make matters worse, President Bush and the Republican leadership plan to make several changes to the student loan programs - including eliminating altogether the option for students to lock in a low fixed rate on their college loans - that will force higher prices onto students and parents.

Eliminating the low fixed rate consolidation benefit will force typical student borrowers to pay at least $2,100 more in interest costs on their college loans. That's why it's even more urgent that, over the next few weeks, graduates seize this opportunity to reduce the cost of their higher education through loan consolidation.

Congress can do much more for students beyond retaining the consolidation benefit.

This month, I plan to introduce the College Opportunity for All Act of 2005, along with Representative Kildee and several other colleagues, to boost college opportunities and make college more affordable now and in the future.

Specifically, the College Opportunity Act for All would significantly lower the cost of student loans by:

• lowering the interest rate cap on student loans from 8.25% to 6.8%;
• giving students who are consolidating their loans the choice of a fixed or variable rate;
• allowing students stuck with high interest rates to refinance their loans; and
• completely eliminating student loan taxes or origination fees.

These changes would save the typical borrower thousands of dollars in interest costs.

Students should never miss out on a higher education because they can't afford it.

***

http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/ed31_democrats/rel6705.html