| Save financial aid from Congress |
In November the House of Representatives will vote on the Republican’s higher education bill, HR 609. The bill proposes a minimum cut of $9 billion to federal student aid programs. Even more frightening, the maximum proposed cut nearly doubles that. This new legislation will cause an average increase of $5,800 in student loan interest. This is the wrong step for the government to be taking when you take into account in-state tuition for four-year universities has risen 36 percent since 2001. Tuition increases have been even worse at Mt. Hood Community College. Since 2001 the college’s tuition has more than doubled. With student costs increasing, aid should also be increasing, not decreasing. It’s not fair that the government actively makes education less accessible. The solution to this problem is simple. The government should stop subsidizing school lenders. Lenders make profits off of school loans. The government has no right giving handouts to these lenders. Those subsidies could be redirected into the federal student aid programs. HR 609 proposes some reductions in subsidies to school lenders, but doesn’t end the subsidies all together, as it should. What’s worse, the reduced subsidies won’t be used within the student aid program to avoid cuts. Instead they’ll be distributed for defense spending, oil subsidies, and disaster relief. Our representatives need to know that these kinds of cuts to aid are unfair and won’t be tolerated. Listed below are various contacts to our state leaders in Congress. Contact them and let them know that subsidy reductions to lenders should be used to buffer cuts to aid. Earl Blumenauer Ron Wyden Gordon Smith |