Today, the U.S. House of Representatives will vote on an egregious measure to cut student loan programs by $14.3 billion.
The bill was originally slated to go to a vote on Sept. 19 but was pushed back to Nov. 10 as a result of student uproar, according to Jasmine Harris, legislative director of the United States Student Association.
“It’s easier to pass a bill in Congress if the public doesn’t know about it,” said Harris.
There has been haphazard coverage of both bills by major news organizations; the majority of reporting has been by InsidehigherEd.com and publications put out by the USSA and other student-run activist groups.
On Thursday, Nov. 3, the U.S. Senate passed parallel legislation to slash $36 billion in mandatory government spending programs, including more than $17 billion from government-supported student loan programs, as part of Congress’ yearly budget reconciliation process.
“Our students have done thousands of phone calls, e-mails, press conferences, faxes and rallies to relate their concerns,” said Harris. “Thanks to a lot of our efforts, [the vote is] moved back to tomorrow.”
The customary budget reconciliation process is employed when the federal government is significantly in arrears. In this particular piece of legislation, the Senate plan devotes about $8 billion toward temporary aid for students in lower socioeconomic classes or students studying the fields of science and mathematics.
“We’re aware that they’re talking about it,” said Bob Woodruff, chief financial officer of Saint Louis University. “We know it will affect higher education, [but] nothing has been decided yet.”
The House bill will increase student borrowers’ interest rates, create mandatory taxes, and place an extraneous fee on consolidating loans. The average student who has borrowed $18,000 will pay at least one-third of that sum in interest. Currently, the interest rate on federal student loans is 4.7 percent for students in school and 5.3 percent for graduates. The proposed bills would cut $9.7 billion out of student subsidies to lenders, which would drive the interest rates up to a fixed rate of 6.8 percent.
“I think that this shows a lack of priorities by our government,” said Harris. “We’re creating a larger class of people below the poverty level – We are not supportive of the Senate bill, we believe we need more aid in student loan bills in the first place. If we don’t defeat the House bill, there will be a worse conference bill,” Harris said.
Higher education is already in the hole across the board, according to Harris.
“The Senate passed a bill; it doesn’t mean that the president has signed it,” said Woodruff. “I think this is still under consideration.”
The bill in the Senate and the House would cut inefficiencies and use the savings to aid elementary and secondary education programs affected by the recent hurricanes.
“The budget reconciliation process is definitely not accomplishing what it was created to do,” Harris said. “It was created to sideline spending and prevent looming deficit-it will be the generation in college paying for the deficit in the future.”
