Groups Urge Senate to Pass Student Loan Reform

This week, 50 organizations representing millions of students, families, workers and educators, wrote to urge the Senate to support President Obama’s higher education agenda. The groups expressed their support for initiatives embodied in the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act (H.R. 3221), which recently passed in the U.S. House of Representatives. The Senate HELP Committee--chaired by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA)--will be marking up their version of the bill in the coming weeks. The coalition was spearheaded by the Campaign for College Affordability, Campus Progress, United States Student Association and United States Public Interest Research Group.

The cooperation of these organizations, which include major unions, student groups, women’s groups, parents groups, African Americans, Latinos, college admissions officers and registrars, social workers and others, sends the clear message that this legislation is critical for the advancement of educational opportunity in America, and will finally prioritize the needs of students over those of banks and special interests.

Check out the letter below:

Dear Senator Harkin and Senator Enzi,

As national organizations representing millions of people all across the country, we write to strongly urge you to support the principles of President Obama's higher education agenda. The President’s plan would end wasteful subsidies to student loan companies and use the savings -- as much as $87 billion over 10 years -- to help students pay for college. The House of Representatives passed similar legislation, HR-3221, by a vote of 253 –171.

Helping low and middle-income families pay for college is essential to building a strong economic future and ensuring equal opportunity for all. But today, family wealth often determines whether a person can attend college. Pell Grants, federal grants for students with the most financial need, covered 72% of the average cost of attending a public four-year college in 1976, but only 32% of this cost in 2008. The proportion of students graduating with at least $25,000 worth of student loan debt has increased, from 5% in 1996 to 24% in 2008, and, as a result, many lower or middle-income young adults are too burdened to enroll in and continue attending college. Meanwhile, shrinking state revenues have led to dramatic cuts in public college budgets, resulting in large-scale tuition increases. Some schools have also capped enrollment and reduced faculty levels. These trends help explain why the U.S. is falling behind in education: Americans ages 35-54 rank second worldwide in percentage of college graduates, but those ages 25-34 now rank 10th.

At a time when our country is in great need of investment in education, these reforms will aid students, parents and workers through crucial innovations:

• Strengthening Pell grants by investing funds to increase the maximum grant to $5,500 in 2010 and $6,900 in 2019, allowing several hundred thousand more students to qualify for aid.

• Supporting the Perkins loan program to help decrease the number of undergraduates who rely on risky private loans (the share of undergraduates with these loans increased from 5% to 14% between 2004 and 2008), and allow more students at state schools to benefit from the program.

• Investing in Community Colleges and worker retraining programs by enhancing student instruction, student counseling and other supports for community college students, by supporting partnerships between schools and businesses, and by increasing access to online curriculum to meet the needs of our workforce.

• Switching to direct federal lending to end costly subsidies, ensure that borrowers no longer have to face market instabilities and can instead utilize more economical direct loans, and save $87 billion dollars to be invested into education and a fiscally responsible future.

• Providing new major support for minority serving institutions, which are of critical importance in light of their emerging relevance to the ultimate achievement of national goals related to college access and completion.

• Simplifying the FAFSA form to lighten the load on students and families applying for aid through this daunting process.

• Investing in early childhood education programs to encourage the adoption of early childhood learning standards and best practices, along with the training of a skilled child education workforce.

All these reforms are important to meet America’s workforce needs, which, at the current rate, the U.S. will fall short of meeting by 16 million graduates in 2025.

We hope we can count on you to stand with America's students and families, and support a proposal that will strengthen our economy and our nation's commitment to economic opportunity for all.

Sincerely,

Accountable America
AFL-CIO
American Association of College Registrars and Admissions Officers
American Association of University Women
American Federation of Teachers
American Medical Student Association
Americans for Democratic Action
Americans for Fairness in Lending
Campaign for America’s Future
Campaign for College Affordability
Campus Progress, Center for American Progress
Center for Responsible Lending
Coalition on Human Needs
College Democrats of America
Consumer Action
Consumers Union
Demos
Education Trust
Feminist Majority
MomsRising
National Association for College Admission Counseling
National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education
National Association for Social workers
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
National Black Student Law Association
National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education
National Consumer Law Center
National Consumers League
National Council of La Raza
National Education Association
National Women’s Law Center
New Jersey Citizen Action
Public Citizen
Rock the Vote
Roosevelt Institute Campus Network
Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law
Student Association for Voter Empowerment (SAVE)
The First Five Years Fund
The Greenlining Institute
The Institute for College Access and Success
The National Advocacy Center of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd
Thurgood Marshall College Fund
USAction
United Negro College Fund
Union Plus
United States Public Interest Research Group (US PIRG)
United States Student Association
Virginia Organizing Project
Young Democrats of America
YouthBuild USA

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Robert Brandon is the Coordinator of the Campaign for College Affordability.

Views expressed on this page are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Campaign for America's Future or Institute for America's Future