[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 60 (Wednesday, April 25, 2012)]
[House]
[Page H2081]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             STAFFORD LOANS

  (Ms. HANABUSA asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Ms. HANABUSA. Madam Speaker, I represent Hawaii, the youngest State 
in this Union. Many of our people immigrated to our wonderful State 
within the last hundred-plus years. When they immigrated, they came to 
work on plantations for the most part, and they knew one thing: for 
their children to be better, to get ahead, they needed an education. 
And there has always been a very strong belief that education was the 
answer.
  This July, we will see the most popular student loan increase in its 
interest rate from 3.4 to 6.8 percent. It will affect 7.4 million 
students and will mean $1,000 a month more for each and every one of 
them.
  Think about it, Madam Speaker. We say the students are our future. We 
need them to be in college so that we will be the great Nation that we 
once were. Then I ask you: Why is it that we haven't taken up the 
legislation to again freeze the loan rates?
  Keep it at 3.4 percent so we can have our future, and we can show 
these students that we really believe in them and invest in them.

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