OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

Keeping Student Loan Interest Rate Low

Floor Speech

Date: May 8, 2012
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Higher Education

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, when the President alerted the country that student loan interest rates would double July 1, our Republican friends called it a fake controversy, that they always intended to take care of it. Why, then, was it nowhere to be found in the Republican Ryan budget? Why do they want to pay for it with the health care funds of the parents and grandparents of the Class of 2012?

This year's class will graduate with an unemployment rate for their age group that is twice the national average. Keeping their loan rates low should be this session's no-brainer. If student loan rates go to 6.8 percent, they will be paying above the mortgage interest rates of many Americans. Treasury is borrowing at virtually zero.

Congress has not given the Class of 2012 a jobs bill. One graduation gift we can give them is the current 3.4 percent interest rate.


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