Durbin Bill To Cut Student Interest Rates In Half Goes To President For Signature

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Durbin Bill To Cut Student Interest Rates In Half Goes To President For Signature

Legislation written by U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) and U.S. Congressman George Miller (D-CA) to cut student interest rates in half, was included in the College Cost Reduction Act of 2007 (HR 2669) that was passed by the House and the Senate today and will be sent to the President for signature.

"This bill may be the most important piece of legislation that we pass this year," said Durbin. "We give a lot of speeches on the Senate floor about how much we love this country and how much we want it to succeed, but the real test here is whether or not we are prepared to invest in our children. This bill invests in our kids by giving them the one thing in America that gives you a chance to succeed- an education."

The Durbin-Miller bill (S.2573) was first introduced in the 109th Congress in April of 2006 in response to the Republican-led Congress' decision to cut $12 billion of federal student aid programs in order to help finance tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans. Specifically, the Durbin-Miller legislation will cut interest rates on need-based federal loans for undergraduate students from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent over the next four years.

Durbin reintroduced his bill (S.282) in the 110th Congress on January 12th, 2007. The Durbin-Miller proposal was incorporated into the House version of the College Cost Reduction Act of 2007 (HR 2669) which the House passed July 11th. Today, the House and Senate reconciled their versions of the bill and passed a final conference report for the College Cost Reduction Act of 2007 that included the student interest rate cut proposal. The bill now goes to the President for his signature.

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