[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 4928-4929]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      STAFFORD LOAN INTEREST RATES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Vermont (Mr. Welch) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WELCH. Mr. Speaker, in 74 days, this Congress may well hang a 
financial albatross around the necks of students and families across 
this country. That's because, on July 1, student interest rates are 
scheduled to go from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent, literally doubling the 
interest costs that our kids and their parents are going to have to pay 
on their education.
  We have got to find a way, Republicans and Democrats, to work 
together and avoid this punishing interest rate increase on our 
students. This is not about Republicans or Democrats. It's not about 
red States or blue States. It's not about the 2012 elections. It's 
about the kids that we all represent. It's about the parents that we 
all represent.
  In my case in the State of Vermont, it's about students like Michael 
McGurk, who is a freshman at the University of Vermont, and he 
literally doesn't know whether he's going to be able to go on in 
college if the interest rates double. It's about parents like Ben 
Truman and Jennifer Wallace Brodeur, who last month were sitting around 
the table with their son who was about to go to college and are trying 
to put the pieces together to be able to afford it.
  What this is also about is ground zero for the middle class. This 
country faces a very fundamental question: Are we a country, are we a 
Congress that is going to remain committed to expanding and broadening 
the middle class, making it possible for low-income folks to climb 
their way into the middle class, making it possible for folks in the 
middle class to stay there? In order to do that, we have to invest in 
the future, and that means making it possible, making it affordable, 
for our kids to get the education they need to get that start.
  Student debt in this country is at a crisis point. At $900 billion, 
student debt outpaces that of credit cards, outpaces that of auto 
loans, and there is no end in sight. In Vermont--and again, this has 
nothing to do with what their political affiliation is--nearly 70 
percent of our college students graduate with a debt of about $30,000. 
That's real money. That's more than many of those students will make in 
their first years out of college. It's a tough job market, and entry 
level jobs don't pay a lot. Students are totally at the mercy of a 
system that is out of control. The average tuitions at 4-year public 
universities rose by over 8 percent last year, so costs are going up 
even as student aid is going down.
  A recent poll found that 75 percent of Americans viewed college as 
unaffordable. That can't be something that we allow to continue. People 
need to have confidence that that ticket to the middle class is there 
and that it's affordable. That's why we, together, have to find a way 
to avoid this doubling of interest rates. For over 8 million students 
in this country, Stafford loans are a very critical resource, helping 
them afford the cost of that college education we all want them to get.
  With the Federal Government now borrowing money at close to 2 
percent, why are we asking middle class families to pay 6.8 percent? 
These are not grants. These are loans. They'll be repaid. Let's find a 
way to help our kids and to help our parents.

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