Miller Statement on Upcoming Senate Student Loan Vote
WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-CA), the senior Democrat on the House Education and the Workforce Committee, released the following statement today as the Senate prepares to vote on legislation to stop interest rates on student loans from doubling on July 1.
“In addressing student loan interest rates, any ‘solution’ should at the very least do no harm. A proposal that increases the debt load of students and families is no solution at all. It’s as simple as that. Unfortunately, the current House and Senate Republican proposals fail to meet this test. The Student Loan Affordability Act, on the other hand, stops the interest rate hike without making the long-term student debt problem worse. I hope the Senate will move to support that bill.”
Last month the House Republicans pushed through legislation that would make college more expensive for students and families. The bill, H.R. 1911, would make college more expensive by charging students and families nearly $4 billion more in higher interest payments for their student loans. The legislation would also force students into loans with interest rates that reset every year of the loan, with characteristics similar to predatory adjustable-rate mortgages. The Senate will vote today on two proposals on student loan interest rates. The Reed-Harkin proposal would freeze interest rates on subsidized Stafford student loans at 3.4 percent for two years and allow Congress time to work on a long-term solution during the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. The Coburn-Burr-Alexander proposal would make college more expensive for students by charging nearly $16 billion more in higher interest payments for student loans. This is worse than H.R. 1911 and if Congress did nothing and allowed interest rates to double on July 1.
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