Stafford Loan Interest Rates

Floor Speech

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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