Flashback Friday: 1999: Congresswoman Biggert Voted to Force 112,000 Students Out of Aid Programs

Press Release

With student loan interest rates set to double in just over a week, Congresswoman Biggert has repeatedly stood with Tea Party interests and Republican Party bosses in Washington to play partisan politics instead of working towards a solution. This is not the first time Congresswoman Biggert has put Washington politics before the best interests of Illinois students. Over the course of her 13-year career in Congress, Biggert has repeatedly voted to cut student aid, forcing more students and veterans to shoulder the burden of skyrocketing education costs. In 1999, her first year in Congress, she even voted to force 112,000 students directly off of work study aid programs.

Flashback 1999: As the cost of college continued to rise, Congresswoman Biggert voted to slash an important student aid program. She voted for a Republican budget which would remove 112,000 students from the Federal Work Study Program while providing billions in dollars of tax breaks to billionaires and undercutting the budget surpluses accumulated during the Clinton years.

"We need to make college more affordable, not limit options for Illinois students and their families by piling on higher interest loans and more debt," said Bill Foster. "When you look at the difference between the unemployment rates between college-educated and non-college-educated workers, you can see how short-sighted Congresswoman Biggert's repeated votes to cut student aid have been. She is letting partisan brinksmanship in Washington prevent an investment in our children and our future while Congress continues to hand out tax breaks to special interests. Middle class families need to know that their leaders are putting their needs first, but right now it's clear they are not the priority of the Republican Congress in Washington."

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